AT&T Co and Western Digital Corp have expanded their collaboration so that AT&T will provide all of Western Digital’s external volume requirements for CMOS wafers, in a long term deal worth more than $50m a year that goes well beyond a foundry pact. AT&T will also license and transfer process technology, including engineer training, to a new prototyping chip plant that Western Digital will build to prepare parts for volume production at AT&T plants. The agreements will enable Western Digital to do its parts in 1.25 micron CMOS rather than 3 micron now, moving to sub-micron design rules shortly. On the development side, Western Digital will work with AT&T manufacturing and Bell Laboratories staff, sharing input on CMOS development.
