North American Company Profiles - Smithsonian - The Chip Collection

Alliance Semiconductor North American Company Profiles
Key Agreements
• Alliance and UMC signed an agreement in 4Q95 calling for UMC to expand allocation of wafer fabrication
capacity to Alliance for the manufacture of Alliance’s DRAM products. In return, Alliance granted UMC a license
to produce for itself a certain number of Alliance DRAM products. As discussed above, UMC and Alliance are
also cooperating in the manufacture of ICs through two new IC foundry companies in Taiwan.
• Alliance signed an agreement with 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. in late 1995 to work together on ensuring compatibility
between Alliance’s ProMotion multimedia chips and 3Dfx Interactive’s Voodoo Graphics three dimensional
graphics accelerator designed for 3D entertainment applications.
• Alliance licensed Aspec Technology's Portfolio family of ASIC design tools in 2Q95. These tools will allow
the company to create low-cost ASIC gate array and embedded memory array products.
• Alliance entered into a joint development, manufacturing, and marketing agreement with Japan's Rohm Co.,
Ltd. in mid-1994 calling for Rohm to furnish Alliance with fab capacity for the production of SRAMs. Rohm will
also help Alliance sell and market the products in Japan; Alliance will, in turn, assist Rohm in developing highperformance,
low-power SRAMs.
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INTEGRATED CIRCUIT ENGINEERING CORPORATION