Integrated device manufacturer

An integrated device manufacturer (IDM) is a semiconductor company which designs, manufactures, and sells integrated circuit (IC) products. As a classification, IDM is often used to differentiate between a company which handles semiconductor manufacturing in-house, and a fabless semiconductor company, which outsources production to a third-party. Due to the dynamic nature of the semiconductor industry, the term IDM has become less accurate than when it was coined.

OSATs

The term OSATs means "outsourced semiconductor assembly and test providers". OSATs have dominated IC packaging and testing.[1]

Fabless operations
Main article: Fabless manufacturing

The terms fabless (fabrication-less), foundry, and IDM are now used to describe the role a company has in a business relationship. For example, Freescale owns and operates fabrication facilities (fab) where it manufactures many chip product lines, as a traditional IDM would. Yet it is known to contract with merchant foundries for other products, as would fabless companies.

Manufacturers

Many electronic manufacturing companies engage in business that would qualify them as an IDM:

Reading
gollark: I should build in things to arbitrarily downrank web frameworks I don't like.
gollark: I agree.
gollark: Actually, yes, hm, troubling.
gollark: There will also be advertising, which will arbitrarily tell you to use Haskell if you search for anything with Java in it, for instance.
gollark: To the extent of "which links did someone click after making a search query", without a person attached.

References
  1. http://semiengineering.com/tag/osats/ outsourced semiconductor assembly and test providers (OSATs)
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