Research and Innovation

The main aim of research and innovation in TowerJazz is to provide the Customers and Partners with novel challenging technologies. The projects are directly linked with the Company business priorities: Power Management, BiCMOS, Mixed-Signal and RFCMOS, CMOS Image Sensor, Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) and MEMS capabilities. TowerJazz's innovation strategy is to invest in application-driven research with the potential of bringing products to market in three-to-five years and differentiate TowerJazz in the specialty "More than Moore" foundry market. The projects are conducted according the following three funding schemes:

Projects and Direct Projects with TowerJazz Customers
TowerJazz participates in joint research with Israeli, European, Korean, Japanese, Singapore and US Universities and companies on projects ranging from demonstrating novel circuit and application results using our process technologies to advanced characterization of our technologies, such as radiation immunity or extreme temperature measurements. Recently, TowerJazz signed joint research agreements with Institute of Microelectronics (IME, Singapore) on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), packaging and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), entered the Tecnopolis del Sur R&D consortium in Argentina with an outlook to business development in South America. Another example of direct research cooperation is a joint TowerJazz- Crocus Technology project on the development of thermally assisted magnetic RAM promising for substitution of both SRAM, DRAM and NVM in future designs.

International Consortia and Two-side Government Agreements
In the last years TowerJazz was awarded a number of prestigious international research grants in several fields of semiconductor electronics. These grants include European Union FP7 grant on the development of radiation hard electronic components (SkyFlash project), Italy-Israel and France-Israel bi-national projects on specialized semiconductor memories and CIS imagers (RIFlash, RHESSA, CISSA), bi-national project on GaN devices (PEGASO), etc. Research and Technological International Agreements have a wide geography that include South and North America, Europe and Asia. TowerJazz international cooperation is a powerful innovation tool which also allows the Company to expand its global reach to promising markets. The efficiency of cooperation is confirmed by joint publications in leading international journals.

Government Consortia and R&D Agreements
TowerJazz participates in several R&D Consortia sponsored by Israeli Ministry of Trade in Israel and DARPA in the USA:

• ALPHA - Advanced Low Power High-End Applications. ALPHA includes leading Israeli Academia and Industry institutions working in the field of low-power electronics. TowerJazz develops devices for power management, low power NVM integrated in CMOS platforms, in particular novel flavors of cost efficient ultra low power (C-Flash) and small cell size (Y-Flash) memories.
• SES - Creating Innovative Solar Energy Solutions. TowerJazz cooperates with Israeli companies and Academia working on photoelectric solar cells. TowerJazz develops high-voltage solar cells integrated into CMOS, and high voltage GaN based devices for concentrated solar power (CSP) system.
• BMP - Bio Medical Photonics. TowerJazz role is development of CIS image sensors for the smallest in the world endoscopy cameras fabricated by one of Israeli partners.
• HyST - Hypersensitive Photonics Systems. TowerJazz develops a camera with pixels employing internal gain Avalanche Photo-Diode (APD) sensitive both in visible and infra-red (IR) light.
• SIX - high speed imaging systems and X-ray applications. The developed ultra-high sensitivity CMOS imagers, including those with avalanche photo detectors of special design enable photon counting in high speed imaging systems and X-ray applications.
• GRATE - Gratings of Regular Arrays and Trim Exposures. DARPA, TowerJazz, and USA University partners collaborate on development of 500GHz SiGe HBT (heterojunction bipolar transistors) to address emerging applications in imaging, radar, automotive collision avoidance, and very high data rate short-range wireless transmission.

The results of the performed studies are regularly published as research papers in the world most appreciated journals and presented at major International Conferences. In addition, a regularly issued peer-reviewed internal TowerJazz Technical Journal reflects the latest developments and advances of TowerJazz engineers. The list of TowerJazz patents and selected technical publications for the last years reflects the research directions and major achievements of the company.