Altis Semiconductor (Corbeil-Essonnes, France) has installed American Superconductor Corp.'s (AMSC; Westborough, Massachusetts, U.S.) voltage regulation system to prevent product-damaging power disturbances at its manufacturing plant in France.

Altis Semiconductor, a joint-venture between Infineon Technologies and IBM Microelectronics, is one of the largest manufacturers of logic components in Europe, with a capacity of 40,000 8-inch (20-cm) wafer starts per month. The power-quality system, an industrial application of AMSC's superconductor magnetic energy storage (SMES) technology, protects a 7-MW electrical load at the Altis plant, representing 30% of the site's production load.

Electricite de France (EDF; Paris, France) purchased the Power Quality Industrial Voltage Regulation (PQ-IVR) system installed at Altis in 2000 after increasing its interest in SMES solutions as a way to provide better power quality to its industrial customers. Prior to an installation at one of its customers' industrial sites, EDF put the system through rigouous tests in its R&D labs. The Altis PQ-IVR system is the second such system commissioned to provide productivity-enhancing power quality at a semiconductor lab in the last year. In addition to units in other manufacturing settings around the world, AMSC is actively quoting PQ-IVR solutions to several other semiconductor manufacturers.

The SMES system stores real power, which is combined with reactive power generated by advanced power electronics. The PQ-IVR system relies on microprocessor logic to detect voltage disturbances within milliseconds and counteract them to prevent costly productivity problems associated with voltage dips.
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