Today Maxim is announcing that we have reached an agreement to sell our San Antonio fab to TowerJazz, a leading specialty foundry company. You can read more about the transaction in our joint press release.
As I mentioned at the One Maxim Meeting in July, selling our San Antonio fab to a strategic partner offers several benefits:
1) It enables increased utilization through the sale of wafers to Tower Jazz customers using their process technologies and enables us to better load our Beaverton wafer fab. This will lower our operating costs going forward.
2) Through a long-term supply agreement, we will support our customers for many years, but only pay for the capacity we use.
3) Like Maxim, TowerJazz is constantly pursuing innovation to win new business. This will create new career growth opportunities for fab employees at what had been an underutilized facility.
While we will certainly miss working directly with the team in San Antonio, I’m very pleased to report that TowerJazz will be retaining the nearly 500 employees working at the facility.
Ultimately, this is a win for Maxim, a win for TowerJazz, and a win for the employees at the San Antonio fab.
Please join me in thanking the San Antonio fab employees for their service to Maxim, and in wishing them all the best in their new company.