Agreement will pool efforts towards advance 32-nanometre manufacturing
In a move that signals a firm and ongoing commitment to future technology development, IBM and its joint-development alliance partners Infineon Technologies and Freescale Semiconductor along with its Common Platform technology partners Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics, have signed a series of semiconductor process development and manufacturing agreements.
The joint development agreements between these companies will now include 32-nm bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process technology and joint development of process design kits (PDKs) to support that technology. Building on the success of earlier joint development and manufacturing agreements at 90nm, 65nm and 45nm, alliance partners will be able to produce high-performance, energy-efficient chips at 32nm. The partners plan to pool their combined expertise and collaborate to design, develop and manufacture advanced technology through 2010. Those technologies, ranging from next-generation hand-held products to the world's highest performance supercomputers -- may be used by the five partners and other companies to help solve real-life problems in fields such as medicine, communications, transportation and security.
"IBM remains convinced that collaborative innovation in an open ecosystem of partners is the key to technology development, both now and in the years to come," said Michael Cadigan, general manager, semiconductor solutions, IBM Global Engineering Solutions. "Today's announcement validates that strategy by meeting client requirements for progressive technology. With the extensions of our agreements to the 32-nm generation -- including manufacturing and IBM Research to complement the proven joint development model in place for well over a decade – IBM is working together with its alliance partners to deliver technology that promises to dramatically change the way we live, work and play."
"Infineon continues its successful strategy to develop advanced technologies with its alliances and to manufacture them with partners," said Dr. Franz Neppl, senior vice president, Base Technologies & Services, Infineon Technologies. "The jointly developed technologies, together with Infineon's application and product design know-how, will enable Infineon to provide to our customers cost-effective system-on-silicon solutions and manufacturing capabilities for our core business in communications and automotive/industrial areas."
"Major new challenges are expected at the 32-nm node, both in materials as well as device structures," said KP Suh, executive vice president, ASIC/Foundry Business, System LSI Division, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. "We expect to deliver breakthrough technology by working together with our partners, who bring a variety of expertise to the industry."
IBM, Chartered and Samsung, as Common Platform technology manufacturers, will be able to use the jointly developed 32-nm process technology and design kits to synchronise their manufacturing facilities. This helps facilitate the flexibility to produce nearly identical chips for their respective high-volume OEM clients, who require a multi-sourcing model and expect early access to process technology.
The five companies will work together to deliver high-performance and low-standby power products through:Focus on low cost and minimum complexity while retaining performance. Implementation of new materials such as high-k/metal gate, advanced stress engineering, and extreme low-k films in the back-end-of-line (BEOL). Immersion lithography to achieve competitive density and chip size focus on quality analogue models for the digital communications marketplace.
Providing a platform for derivative technologies such as RF CMOS and embedded DRAM or eDRAMIn addition, by using common manufacturing electrical specifications across manufacturing platform partners, technologies can be more easily transferred between partner facilities.
"The industry has recognised the value and importance of the collaborative model in driving robust, cost-effective solutions," said Liang-Choo Hsia, senior vice president, technology development at Chartered. "As we now collaborate on our fourth node under this joint model, we have seen how each company brings strengths and expertise to drive customer-centric offerings. The results of our collaboration have served as a platform for providing customers with flexible sourcing solutions."
The 32-nm cooperation will include the joint development of an enablement package, similar to previous alliance developments. This package will support the most common design tools that will allow customers to utilise the full potential of this advanced technology for their specific products. As with previous nodes, 32-nm development activities will be conducted at IBM's 300-mm semiconductor fabrication facility in N.Y. Freescale originally announced its membership in the alliance on January 23.
