Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden was founded in 1961 as the leading R&D center in Eastern Europe and built Eastern Europe's first 1Mbit DRAM and ASIC. The company was privatized in 1993 and has invested $50 million in new technology and equipment. Its revenues have grown from $2 million in 1993 to $41 million in 1996 and the company plans to break even soon. ZMD has 450 employees, over 80 in IC design and development.

ZMD has 3 semiconductor divisions: foundry services, ASICs, and memory. Foundry customers include Siemens, Philips and Temic. The company's process technologies include 0.8u SPDM CMOS and 1.2u DPDM CMOS for mixed signal designs. In 1997 ZMD plans to introduce several new options for its 0.8u process including EEPROM, second poly for resistors and caps., a fuse and high voltage transistors. A low voltage (1.2V) 0.8u process will also be introduced this year. BiCMOS 1.2u and 2u high voltage (40V) processes are also avail. Several ASIC and Gate Array families (up to 80K usable gates) are available using the processes described above.

ZMD's memory division makes non-volatile SRAM, application specific memories and std. SRAM. The primary focus is on shadow nvRAM, i.e. SRAM with EEPROM backup. The nvSRAM is being developed in conjunction with Simtek (Colorado Springs, Colorado). The first device, in production, is a 64K nvRAM; future devices will range in density from 4K to 1Mbit.

The Saxony govt. has been active in trying to make Dresden another “Silicon Valley” and has helped ZMD through privatization. AMD's and Siemens' megafabs are the most visible signs of this effort. ZMD appears to be heading in the right direction and will succeed if it can attract the capital and technology investments necessary to fuel its growth. The company is actively looking for partners. ZMD's revenues had been derived mainly from customers in Germany. In late 1995 ZMD began focusing on International sales and now has 6 design centers to support customers in Europe and the US. In August 1996, ZMD America was founded in Santa Clara to provide ASIC and foundry support for US customers.

Wolfgang Nolde, President and CEO

ZMD America
3945 Freedom Circle, Suite 550
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1225
Tel. +1-408-562 9310 Fax +1-408-562 9311