Representatives from Texas Instruments Inc. last week invited a few members of the media to Richardson， Texas， for a tour of RFAB—the semiconductor industry’s first 300-mm analog fab and first LEED certified fab.

　　TI originally broke ground on the shell for RFAB in 2004. Work was completed by 2007， but the shell sat idle for more than two years until TI happened on a sweetheart of a deal—scooping up a boatload of 300-mm production equipment from bankrupt memory chip vendor Qimonda AG for the deeply discounted rate of $172.5 million.

　　According to Paul James Fego， vice president of worldwide manufacturing for TI‘s Technology and Manufacturing group， RFAB would have been a 200-mm analog fab—if not for the deal that was available on the Qimonda equipment. “We had the building built， we had an equipment opportunity，” he said. “And we knew the breadth and the volume of our analog business could fill a 300-mm fab.”

　　Ramping toward full production

　　Within weeks of the September 2009 announcement that TI planned to open the first 300-mm analog fab， the Qimonda equipment began arriving in Richardson， just a few miles north of TI’s headquarters and a cluster of TI fabs in Dallas. Tom Weichel， manager of RFAB. （Weichel said even the furniture in RFAB‘s office space came from Qimonda）。

　　RFAB started ramping toward full production at the end of last year. The facility， which includes about 250，000 square feet of cleanroom space， is currently running about 350 wafers per day， ramping to between 600 and 700 wafers per day by the end of 2011， according to a TI spokesperson .