Tronic opens French plant

Heeding customer demand, Tronic Microsystems has opened a fab in Crolles, France, for production of advanced microelectromechanical systems. The manufacturer is also building a cleanroom in an existing facility. Tronic expects to finish that project by July, and to begin full production by the end of 2003.

Located near Grenoble, the new plant is equipped with 100- and 150-mm processing equipment. The fab's manufacturing area measures 7000 sq ft with 4300 sq ft of cleanroom for making high-end MEMS-based custom components, Tronic says. Annual capacity will be 10,000 wafers. Tronic is ramping up production of custom inertial sensors using thick SOI micromachining. The French firm recently completed a second round of financing and appointed a new CEO, Peter Pfluger.