Triple alliance on 0.1 micro m

Electronics Times, Jan 31, 2000

Taiwanese foundry UMC is joining IBM and Infineon Technologies in the development of semiconductor processing technology aimed at making logic parts at line widths as low as 0.1 micro m.

For the German and US companies, the deal is an extension of their longstanding research carried out at IBM's East Fishkill semi- conductor R&D centre on 256Mbit and 1Gbit DRAM technology and chip manufacturing processes. The initial DRAM alliance was extended to develop logic parts and embedded DRAMs at 0.18 micro m line widths.

The development work is expected to last until 2003, and will use the companies' copper wiring technology.

Dr Peter Bauer, Infineon board member and vice-president in charge of sales, told Electronics Times: "This is a win-win partnership, in that UMC will now share the costs and risks of developing this new technology and the Taiwanese foundry, with which we already have close links, will also bring its own manufacturing and marketing expertise."

Dr Bauer would not comment on the size of investment each company has committed to or the number of researchers who will work on the project at East Fish-kill.

"We already have well over 100 people from both IBM and Infineon working on joint projects at the IBM Semiconductor R&D Centre," he said. "Some of these engineers and scientists will now be diverted to this new logic process project, which is a normal procedure as companies move down the technology road map. Others will join from UMC.

"The two original partners also anticipate extending the number of staff working on this hugely important project."

The two companies believe they will gain an edge in terms of time to market over many of their competitors making logic parts and embedded DRAMs through pooling resources to develop 0.13 and 0.10 micro m capable processes. But they would not say when they expect to transfer the process to their fabs.

A joint statement said: "We expect to make details on the first 0.13 micro m technology available to customers to initiate their designs in the second quarter of this year."