Foundry

Foundry An outsourcing production company that is only in charge of manufacturing semiconductors. The semiconductor industry is largely divided into three groups; an “Integrated Device Manufacturer (IDM)” controls every process from planning to manufacturing the final products on their own, a “Foundry” only oversees manufacturing, and a “Fabless” only has the resources to design semiconductors. A foundry receives a product design from external clients and manufactures the semiconductors. In other words, although a foundry has all the production facilities, instead of designing its own products, it profits by producing designs for its clients. In developing semiconductors, planning is of the utmost importance, but to make these plans a reality, production lines are necessary, too. However, a single semiconductor production line is extremely costly, which is why fabless companies, which specialize in planning, outsource the production to foundries.