Opened in 1997, the highly automated SUMCO Phoenix facility uses some of the most advanced production technology in the world to make 200mm polished silicon wafers. The plant manufactures both heavily doped p-type epitaxial substrates and lightly doped polished wafers. The facility has the capability to finely tune crystal or wafer characteristics to optimize the end product for state-of-the-art CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) applications, such as DRAM and FLASH memory, ASIC and microcontrollers.