SilTerra Malaysia has announced the release of 130nm CMOS Logic Technology with aluminum backend interconnection, CL130AL. This technology is targeting main stream, high volume consumer electronics applications such as Touch Controller, Flash Memory Card Controller, USB Pen-Drive controller, Card Reader, Host MP3 and others.

This technology adopts the same front end design rule as industry standard 130nm CMOS Logic technology and integrates with SilTerra’s proven aluminum backend interconnection, which has already been in high volume production in SilTerra’s High Voltage technology. The technology offers single poly up to 6 layers of aluminum metallization, borderless contacts and via with USG inter-metal dielectric.

The CL130AL offers significant device performance advantages and more gross dies in a wafer compared with foundry standard 180nm CMOS Logic technology.

In addition, SilTerra is partnering with ARM to license ARM Artisan physical IP design libraries, including standard cells and memory compilers.

“In the current market environment where customers are becoming more cost conscious and continue to look for innovative means to squeeze more gross dies from a wafer, the introduction of CL130AL comes at the right time to meet our customers’ expectation”, said Yit Loong Lai, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing. “We are glad to partner with ARM to build up the foundation design ecosystem for CL130AL technology and ARM has been supporting our customers very well to ensure smooth design-in across all our Logic technologies.”

“SilTerra is an important foundry partner for ARM and our relationship goes back many years across multiple technology nodes. ARM is a leader in energy-efficient physical IP and we are pleased to offer our feature-rich platform on SilTerra’s new low-cost aluminum-based process technology to enable the success of our mutual customers in the consumer and embedded markets,” said Dr. John Heinlein, vice president of marketing, physical IP division, ARM. “The silicon proven Artisan high-density memory compilers, standard cell libraries and programmable general purpose IO (GPIO) products offer a superior power and area advantage.”

Moving forward, SilTerra will expand this technology to include Radio Frequency (RF) passive components and characterize up to 20GHz for the use in RFCMOS technology. SilTerra is also pursuing with other IP partners to expand our IP portfolio such as OTP (one-time-programming), MTP (multi-time programming), PLL, USB 2.0 PHY and others.

The CL130AL is currently available for prototyping and the design flows have been validated in Synopsys and Mentor platforms.

KUALA LUMPUR: Semiconductor and wafer manufacturer SilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd is eyeing the lucrative Power MOSFET technology microcircuit business.

To help it penetrate that market, it has found a partner in the applied-research organisation Mimos Bhd.

Microcircuit technology is able to prolong the battery life of electronic devices such as mobile phones, portable media players and laptop computers.

According to its chief operating officer, Dr Kamarulzaman Mohamed Zin, SilTerra has always had the know-how for Power MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) wafer fabrication.

But the company did not have the resources to produce these in the volumes that would enable it to compete in the global arena effectively.

He said the wafer fabrication environment is not “like screwdriver production” because it involves a blend of science, engineering and technology.

Wafer fabrication, he said, has been described as among the most challenging manufacturing operations in the world.

“It requires extreme engineering precision and a deep understanding of semiconductors, coupled with tight manufacturing disciplines,” explained Kamarulzaman.

With Mimos onboard, SilTerra is able to tap the applied-research organisation’s best-in-class designs, R&D and wafer-fab facilities to produce between 2,000 and 3,000 Power MOSFET wafers every month for the global market, China especially.

Each wafer can be used to produce from 1,000 to 2,000 power semiconductor microcircuits, depending on the design.

It is also a win-win situation for both parties because Mimos would benefit from the Power MOSFET technology knowledge transfer, said Kamarulzaman.

Globally, the semiconductor business is huge; last year it was worth about US$300bil (RM900bil), with a compounded annual growth rate of 7% to 12%.

A recent Frost & Sullivan study shows that the global marketshare for power semiconductor accounts for 4.5% of the total semiconductor sales worldwide.

It also shows that in spite of the dip in sales in 2008, demand has been on the rise since then, and this is expected to continue for the next three years thanks to the steep rise in the sale of consumer electronics, particularly in the mobile and communication segments.