The proposed fab, according to a statement from SVTC Technologies, will not be a huge, leading-edge facility one for mass-volume chip products. Instead, it has been designed to be a 'small-lot' fab (or a mini-fab) meant to be used in making application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) as well as specialty parts.

According to David Bergeron, chief technology officer at SVTC Technologies, the fab is still a "concept and not a done deal." The company, he added, is still "sizing it up" and that the proposed fab will be located in Austin, Texas, the United States.

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, based in Minnesota, the United States, owned and operated, at one time, SVTC Technologies as a 'lab-to-fab' facility, targeting third-party engineering groups. Over many years, SVTC Technologies' the business grew – serving customers ranging from startup companies to big-time fabless semiconductor firms.

In 2007, Cypress Semiconductor Corporation sold its R&D fab unit to Oak Hill Capital Partners and Tallwood Venture Capital, private-equity firms, for about $53 million. And, as a part of this transaction, Cypress Semiconductor transferred the personnel connected with its SVTC business, process technologies as well as equipment to the buyer. At present, Cypress is a customer.

SVTC's business, David Bergeron added, continues to work with both big and small firms with a view to bringing technologies from the lab to the fab.