Chartered, IBM collaborate for 22nm

SINGAPORE: Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, one of the world’s top dedicated foundries, announced the extension of its joint development collaboration with IBM to include 22-nanometer (nm) bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The extension to 22nm builds on the original multi-year agreement that the two companies first signed in November 2002. Now in its sixth year, the collaborative development program has enabled Chartered to provide foundry access to a leading technology roadmap that leverages invention and innovation for manufacturing solutions, spanning five major generations of advanced process technology, including 90nm, 65nm, 45nm, 32nm, and now 22nm logic processes.

"This news demonstrates that a long-term collaborative model for semiconductor research and development yields significant opportunities to improve application performance and cost," said Gary Patton, vice president, IBM Semiconductor Research & Development Center. "Going forward, it will be material science invention that will improve silicon performance while the collaborative model mitigates the escalating cost of technology and design and improves time to manufacture."

"Our relationship with IBM and our flexible Common Platform access provides Chartered's customers an assured process roadmap that leverages IBM’s technology invention in silicon that is first proven in manufacturing at the Albany Nanotechnology Center and then becomes the basis for our joint process integration with our partners," said Liang-Choo "LC" Hsia, senior vice president, technology development at Chartered. "At a time when our customers are just gaining access to the most innovative foundry process in the industry at 32nm, we can now assure them continued customer-centric solutions well into the next decade with 22nm."

As with previous nodes, 22nm development activities will be conducted at IBM’s state-of-the-art 300mm fab facility in East Fishkill, N.Y. Each company will have the ability to implement the jointly developed processes in its own manufacturing facilities.