TowerJazz CEO Russell Ellwanger: Optimistic about specialty foundry business, dedicated to customer success with global layout

2018-10-12 16:28:08 来源: Monica LIU
Russell Ellwanger, CEO of TowerJazz, sat down with SemiInsights to talk about, TowerJazzs focus on RF/HPA, CIS and power management, TowerJazzs vision and mission in China, and multicultural management wisdom.

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, specializes in manufacturing analog integrated circuits for more than 300 customers worldwide in growing markets such as automotive, medical, industrial, consumer and aerospace and defense, among others. Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (NASDAQ: TSEM, TASE: TSEM) and its fully owned U.S. subsidiaries Jazz Semiconductor, Inc. and TowerJazz Texas Inc., operate collectively under the brand name TowerJazz. Over the past several years, TowerJazz has presented record business and financial results while driving customers’ success. As we move forward, we continue with a strong outlook for company growth through a commitment to performance and manufacturing excellence.
SemiInsights: TowerJazzs product and services

Ellwanger: TowerJazz offers a broad range of customizable process technologies, including SiGe BiCMOS and RF CMOS (SOI and bulk) for radio frequency and high performance analog (HPA) applications; CMOS image sensor (CIS); power management, including BCD and 700V, and its patented Y-Flash, the leading solution for non-volatile memory (NVM); CMOS; mixed-signal CMOS; and MEMS capabilities. To complement its sophisticated technology offerings, TowerJazz provides a world-class design enablement platform that enables a quick and accurate design cycle. TowerJazz also provides transfer optimization and development process services (TOPS) to IDMs as well as fabless companies that need to expand capacity.

SemiInsights:  TowerJazz’s Process technology offerings

Ellwanger: When I came to TowerJazz in 2005, TowerJazz did not have enough capacity to be cash flow positive, with an 8-inch Fab that was not fully built out. Revenue was $100 million and the EBITDA was negative $20 million. The cash flow was negative $55 million with a liability of $550 million. So we set for ourselves a couple of big targets.

The first major change: restructuring and profitability (2005-2006). Before I performed my duties, the Company's organizational structure was highly centralized with the central R&D department in Israel and the central marketing team in California. In order to achieve profitability, we divided it up into different business groups (BUs) according to the product line. Each business group has its own independent R&D and sales, and each one has a general manager, along with set business targets. Our goal at the time was to turn losses into profit in the fourth quarter of 2005, and positive cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2006. With extremely hard teamwork, we finally achieved both financial goals.

The second breakthrough was to reach 500 Million USD revenue (2010), partly enabled by moving to RF/HPA from digital. In 2008, we acquired Jazz Technologies, a company with extensive experience in mixed-signal, power management, and RF processes. The mergers and acquisitions barely overlapped in terms of products, removing a lot of redundancy, and we realized $100 million reduction in cost. 2009 was a very bad year for the industry as a whole, but we achieved fruitful mergers and hit $500 million in revenue by 2010.

The third key milestone was exceeding $1 Billion in revenue run rate (2015), and ramping up quickly to $1.4 Billion (2017) run rate. By providing transfer, optimization and development process services (TOPS), TowerJazz signed long-term manufacturing contracts with IDMs that have fab-light outsourcing strategies, capacity shortage with internal fabs, double source policies, and fab closures for cost reduction activities. These partnerships enabled TowerJazz to increase our revenue stream. At the same time, we aggressively acquired additional manufacturing capacity in the Eastern Hemisphere, and operate three fabrication facilities in Japan through TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co. (TPSCo), including a 12-inch 65nm CMOS image sensor manufacturing line.

The performance in 2018 is expected to be relatively flat, mainly due to some adjustments to the product mix in 2017, and shifting to high-end SiGe, which is expected to resume strong growth in 2019/2020.

SemiInsights: What is the next important technology for TowerJazz?

Ellwanger: The overall semiconductor market is growing, and analog within it grows at a higher rate than digital. Most of the markets that we serve are still dominated by IDMs, so its difficult to know exactly the breakdown of market share. However, there are some areas that TowerJazz does have a very good market share – Front End Module (FEM), power management, image sensor and other fields.

In the field of RF & High Performance Analog (RF&HPA), TowerJazz's SiGe BiCMOS, RF-SOI and RFCMOS technologies support high speed, low power products for a variety of consumer, industrial scale and automotive applications. Being an intrinsic part of IoT, wireless communication remains extremely important. TowerJazz pictured a strong roadmap on front-end module (FEM) , to have switches that have breakthrough performance on Ron*Coff and insertion loss. Meanwhile, the ability to integrate silicon photonics is very important, TowerJazz has also developed a strong SiGe roadmap for high-speed optics.

In the field of image sensors, TowerJazz's proven advanced CMOS image sensor technology meets the growing demand for optical sensors in high-end photography, industrial, medical, automotive and consumer applications, including high-end camera phones and 3D cameras. In the key applications of AR/VR, Time of Flight (ToF) technology will become more and more popular in order to have excellent subversive display characteristics. At the same time, the ADAS system in automotive also needs a large number of sensors to obtain information for the analysis and decision-making of artificial intelligence, which will also be a huge market.

Power management technologies are equally important, including driver circuits, battery and mobile power management, PC power control, Class D audio amplifiers, and other applications in the consumer, communications, computer, automotive, and industrial sectors. Designed for maximum flexibility, TowerJazzs power technology platform enables customers to design cost-effective products, improve Figure of Merit (FOM), and achieve the fastest possible success at any desired level of integration. In particular, TowerJazz's 65nm BCD (Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) process has the industry's top Rdson parameters.

SemiInsights: Supporting such a comprehensive process technology portfolio, is it challenging?

Ellwanger: I think that's one of the beauties about having a business unit structure. Each business unit has its own independent R&D budget and sets its own priorities. In the face of the workload challenges brought by business growth, people tend to go crazy on hiring, but TowerJazz is very judicious about headcount, advocating the "rational recruitment, long-term maintenance" team building model, which is more beneficial to the long-term stability and well-being of employees. At the same time, TowerJazz has acquired these diverse process technologies at a lower cost and faster maturity cycle through more than a decade of smart integration acquisitions.

SemiInsights: Quality assurance and supply stability is key to Specialty Foundry clients, what is TowerJazzs effort today and plan for future?

Ellwanger: TowerJazz provides high quality and flexible global manufacturing capacity for fabless and IDM customers. To secure quality assurance and supply stability, TowerJazz has taken the following three actions:

1.Global capacity assurance and regional diversity
For global capacity assurance, TowerJazz operates seven manufacturing facilities in three geographic locations, providing its diversified customer base with over 2.3 million wafers per year: two fabs (150mm and 200mm) located in Migdal Haemek, Israel, one fab (200mm) located in Newport Beach, California, USA, one fab located in San Antonio, Texas, USA and three additional fabs (two 200mm and one 300mm) through TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (TPSCo) located in the Hokuriku region of Japan. TowerJazz's BSI image sensor line in China will also be a part of the global manufacturing landscape.

2. Major flow qualified in multiple factories
TowerJazz has every major flow qualified in more than one factory, to benefit our customers. Should something happen to any given factory fortuitously, customers have continuity because of a second factory. As long as the flow is qualified, you can qualify every part in a very short time if necessary.

3. Take the best out of every culture
Being geographically and culturally diverse, it is very important to take the best out of every culture. Every culture has its own positive and negative sides, and the management wisdom lies in “taking the positive essence” from each. For example, the Japanese are known for their world-class quality.  Here is an interesting view from a Japanese work cafeteria: when people finish their meals, they come back with their tray, the napkins placed in a garbage can, the chopsticks go into a tray all in the same direction, no leftovers, no waste, everything is cleaned up even before it is put into a dishwashing line. When these people go back to the factory, quality never leaves. So we took our fab manager in Japan and put him in charge of the fab in Newport Beach because we wanted him to bring that quality mentality there.

The Israelis have an immediate and aggressive culture, on the other hand, which is a good way to start a meeting because everything is clean. TowerJazz tries to attract people from different cultural backgrounds and move them around so that the good parts of one culture can be integrated into the other cultures.

SemiInsights: Any investment plans in China?

Ellwanger: So far, we have not invested in manufacturing lines in China. We would like to have a mega fab in China, and we are certainly pursuing few opportunities in that direction.

SemiInsights: Your personal perspectives being CEO of TowerJazz since 2005?

Ellwanger: When I visited my second child, we passed a Catholic church, and there was a sign outside saying, “Your vocation, your chosen calling to serve God.” Its a very beautiful statement; you have to make your work worthwhile since it occupies most of your time.

I love identifying stars, giving talented employees opportunities,  reaching out to young people who have a special drive and putting them on a quick path. There's nothing more exciting than watching and giving people opportunities to grow.

A company can do much more to benefit society than any government can. If you give people challenges and the tools to meet those challenges, they go home truly fulfilled at the end of the day, and can be a better husband or wife, better brother or sister, better father or mother, and much better citizens. So to me, the ability to impact lives of people in a good way, that’s the biggest joy of running a successful company.


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