Editing Foundry model (section)

===MOSIS===
The very first merchant foundries were part of the [[MOSIS]] service. The MOSIS service gave limited production access to designers with limited means, such as students, university researchers, and engineers at small [[Startup company|startups]].<ref name="BergerLester2015">{{cite book|author1=Suzanne Berger|author2=Richard K. Lester|title=Global Taiwan: Building Competitive Strengths in a New International Economy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BHCmBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA142|date=12 February 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-46970-4|pages=142–}}</ref> The designer submitted designs, and these submissions were manufactured with the commercial company's extra capacity. Manufacturers could insert some [[Wafer (electronics)|wafers]] for a MOSIS design into a collection of their own wafers when a processing step was compatible with both operations. The commercial company (serving as foundry) was already running the process, so they were effectively being paid by MOSIS for something they were already doing. A factory with excess capacity during slow periods could also run MOSIS designs to avoid having expensive [[Capital (economics)|capital]] equipment stand idle.

Under-use of an expensive manufacturing plant could lead to the financial ruin of the owner, so selling surplus [[Wafer (electronics)|wafer]] capacity was a way to maximize the fab's use. Hence, economic factors created a climate where fab operators wanted to sell surplus wafer-manufacturing capacity and designers wanted to purchase manufacturing capacity rather than try to build it.

Although MOSIS opened the doors to some fabless customers, earning additional [[revenue]] for the foundry and providing inexpensive service to the customer, running a business around MOSIS production was difficult. The merchant foundries sold wafer capacity on a surplus basis, as a secondary business activity. Services to the customers were secondary to the commercial business, with little [[guarantee]] of support. The choice of merchant dictated the design, development flow, and available techniques to the fabless customer. Merchant foundries might require [[Property|proprietary]] and non-portable preparation steps. Foundries concerned with protecting what they considered [[trade secret]]s of their [[methodologies]] might only be willing to release data to designers after an onerous [[nondisclosure agreement|nondisclosure]] procedure.