Leading foundry targets high-voltage, non-volatile memory and high-performance silicon germanium BiCMOS product solutions for display, RFID and wireless products across multiple nodes
MILPITAS, Calif. and SINGAPORE - March 28, 2005 - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq: CHRT and SGX-ST: Chartered), one of the world's top dedicated semiconductor foundries, today detailed its value-added solutions based on its high-voltage (HV), non-volatile memory (NVM) and high-performance silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technologies. Aligning with Chartered's corporate strategy to increase its reach into specialized markets with the productization of value-added technologies, the solutions are developed as plug-in modules on Chartered's proven baseline CMOS processes and are targeted for enhancing performance and delivering high yields in volume production for certain consumer and wireless products, including:
- Display-driver integrated circuits (ICs) for small and large flat-panel displays (FPDs)
- Radio frequency identification (RFID) products and microcontroller units (MCUs)
- Wireless transceivers for enterprise and home wireless local area networks (WLANs), and TV-tuner solutions
Focusing on solutions for complete product life cycle and product migration support, Chartered's value-added technologies are available across multiple mainstream process generations from 0.6 micron to 0.18 micron, and down to the advanced 0.13-micron node.
"Chartered's strategy is to provide innovative value-added solutions built upon our mainstream foundry processes. This enables our customers to simultaneously optimize both product performance and cost, as well as achieve high yields in volume manufacturing," said Kevin Meyer, vice president of worldwide marketing at Chartered. "Our leading customers are successfully ramping on our value-added HV, NVM and high-performance SiGe BiCMOS processes at various technology nodes. As a result, Chartered's value-added solutions are proving to be attractive to companies in fast-moving consumer and wireless communication markets requiring differentiated and reliable products to optimize mass-market opportunities."
HV Solutions for FPD Drivers
Chartered's HV processes are optimized for a broad range of FPD driver requirements. These include single-chip solutions for color super-twisted nematic (CSTN) and passive-matrix organic light emitting diodes (PM OLEDs) displays used in mobile products; thin-film transistor (TFT) source drivers for desktop monitors, notebook computers and large-panel liquid-crystal display (LCD) TVs; and next-generation mobile display technologies, including active matrix OLED and low-temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) TFT.
Key HV process solutions and offerings include:
- 0.35-micron (18V/ ±9V) processes built on 3.3-volt salicide baseline, in production
- 0.35-micron (13.5V) polycide process, in customer prototyping with full qualification expected in the first quarter of 2005
- 0.25-micron (5V) process, in production
- 0.18-micron (1.8V/5V/20V) processes built on low-leakage CMOS baseline, fully qualified and supported by compact, low-power SRAM cell for competitive single-chip solutions and silicon-verified design solutions for competitive time to market
All HV solutions also come with multiple-time programmable (MTP) fuse options, for enabling features such as LCD module contrast and analog trimming.
NVM Solutions for Embedded Products
Targeting RFID products and MCUs for a range of consumer and industrial products, Chartered offers three versions of NVM solutions including EEPROM; one-time programmable (OTP) and MTP blocks; and silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) flash memory block.
These embedded NVM solutions are innovative as they are developed on single-poly logic processes and require fewer additional masking steps compared to conventional NVMs. The embedded NVM solutions also provide designers with greater programming flexibility. Additionally, the SONOS Flash solutions offer very competitive bit cell sizes and at less than one square micron for the 0.18-micron node.
The 0.35-micron EEPROM and OTP solutions are in volume production today at Chartered. The company also expects to offer customers fully qualified 0.25-micron and 0.18-micron MTP solutions by the first half of 2005 and fully qualified 0.18-micron SONOS flash solution by the third quarter of 2005.
High-Performance Wireless Solutions
Available immediately, Chartered offers fully qualified 0.35-micron and 0.18-micron high-performance SiGe BiCMOS processes to enable a range of consumer and industrial wireless technologies-DECT, Wi-Fi, WiMax, cellular and ultra-wide band (UWB)-and TV tuner solutions for digital and cable TVs. These processes are built upon Chartered's 0.35-micron and 0.18-micron baseline CMOS processes.
Demonstrating better performance than industry benchmark, Chartered's 0.35-micron high-performance SiGe BiCMOS process is able to achieve peak fT of 50 GHz and peak fmax of 60 GHz. Both the peak fT and peak fmax of the 0.18-micron high-performance SiGe BiCMOS process are able to reach 100 GHz. The processes feature stacked MIM capacitors with density of 4 fF/micron2, 4-micron thick top metal inductors and hyper-abrupt varactors. Deep trench isolation is also offered as a process option for enhanced RF performance and noise isolation. Additionally, all solutions are supported with complete design-enablement solutions, such as process design kits for optimizing customer design turnaround time, and the Chartered ExpressTM multi-project wafer runs for enabling faster prototyping cycle time and time to market. Chartered is in various stages of engagement with several customers on its 0.35-micron and 0.18-micron high-performance SiGe BiCMOS processes, including product tapeouts and prototyping.
About Chartered
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq: CHRT, SGX-ST: CHARTERED), one of the world's top dedicated semiconductor foundries, offers leading-edge technologies down to 90 nanometer (nm), enabling today's system-on-chip designs. The company further serves the needs of customers through its collaborative, joint development approach on a technology roadmap that extends to 45nm. Chartered's strategy is based on open and comprehensive design enablement solutions, manufacturing enhancement methodologies, and a commitment to flexible sourcing. In Singapore, the company operates a 300mm fabrication facility and four 200mm facilities. Information about Chartered can be found at http://www.charteredsemi.com.
Chartered Safe Harbor Statement under the provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
This news release contains forward-looking statements, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements, including without limitation, the statements relating to our corporate strategy; enhancement of performance and delivery of high yields for certain consumer and wireless products using the value-added solutions; expected availability of fully qualified 0.25-micron and 0.18-micron MTP solutions and fully qualified 0.18-micron SONOS flash solution; and our engagement with customers in 0.35-micron and 0.18-micron high-performance SiGe BiCMOS processes are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are the successful implementation of our corporate strategy; the continued success in our technological advances; customer demands; unforeseen delays or interruptions in our plans for our fabrication facilities; our progress on leading edge products; the rate of semiconductor market recovery, market outlook and trends; economic conditions in the United States as well as globally and competition. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be attained. In addition to the foregoing factors, a description of certain other risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially can be found in the section captioned "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are based on the current view of management on future events. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
