Definition of fabless in English:



  • Denoting or relating to a company which designs microchips but contracts out their production rather than owning its own factory.

    ‘the advantage for the fabless firms is that they can get into the chip business without having to spend billions on manufacture’
    • ‘The company has suggested that it will spin-off its loss-making chip business, and a fabless, or at least fab-light division would make it a more attractive buy.’
    • ‘Like code, a chip's design and its implementation in silicon aren't necessarily one and the same, but that's going to be hard for fabless operations - companies that don't actually make silicon - to accept.’
    • ‘More than 300 so-called fabless chipmakers in the US also source more than half of their silicon wafers from Taiwanese semiconductor foundries.’
    • ‘We operate an efficient and streamlined fabless business model, which ensures sustainable profits even when competition is particularly intense.’
    • ‘We see a bright future ahead in terms of growth for the whole semiconductor industry, and for the fabless industry and for the foundry industry.’


1980s: from fab + -less.