Date: 03/04/2011

austriamicrosystems release 0.18µm HV CMOS process for volume production

austriamicrosystems has announced the conditional release for volume production of its advanced 0.18µm High-Voltage CMOS process technology "H18" which will be manufactured in IBM's 200mm Burlington wafer facility. Austriamicrosystems has Jointly developed the 0.18µm High-Voltage CMOS process with IBM.

This new 0.18µm CMOS process offers integration density up to 118k gates/mm² enabling SoC applications (System-on-Chip) and power-on resistance (Rdson) saving silicon area. This process targets new applications in areas such as smart sensors, sensor interface devices, smart meters, industrial and building controls and LED lighting control.

austriamicrosystems says only a few mask level adders are required on top of the fully compatible CMOS base process to implement high-voltage capabilities, making the H18 process one of the most cost competitive 0.18µm High-Voltage CMOS technologies in the market. The process allows the integration of 1.8V, 5V, 20V and 50V devices on a single chip without any process modifications. Process features includes Schottky barrier diode, high-resistive and precision poly, single- and dual metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors, varactors and up to 7 metal layers including thick last metal layer.

"We are very pleased to have jointly developed an industry-benchmark 0.18µm High-Voltage CMOS process with IBM where austriamicrosystems enabled the technology with its leading high-voltage expertise. The process technology is finding tremendous interest in the market for allowing modular SoC designs integrating analog high-voltage blocks with RF CMOS, extended digital functions and micro-controllers," states Thomas Riener, Senior Vice President and General Manager of austriamicrosystems' Full Service Foundry business unit. "The H18 technology is now ramping in a broad range of smart green applications such as power management and LED driver applications."

"The combination of austriamicrosystems' leadership in high voltage and IBM's high density RF CMOS heritage has created unique value with the H18 process", said Regina Darmoni, Director of Specialty Foundry at IBM Microelectronics. "H18 represents a new paradigm of semiconductor integration, enabling smarter and more cost-effective "endpoint" devices as part of the "Internet of Things". Photovoltaics, Smart Sensors, Smart Meters and LED drivers are just some of the Smarter Planet applications which will benefit. We look forward to our continued collaboration with austriamicrosystems in this expanding market."