Date: 16/09/2010

Panasonic develops mass production technology for 32nm semiconductor chips

Panasonic has announced it has developed a mass-production technology for 32-nm generation system LSIs and is ready to ship system LSIs (model number: MN2WS0150) based on this technology from October 2010 for use in Blu-ray Disc players. The semiconductor chips made from this technology are targeted at consumer electronics applications such as digital TVs, Blu-ray Disc recorders and players.

Panasonic has developed a technology for fabricating high-k/metal gate (HKMG) transistors in a gate-first process. HKMG is the latest buzzword in VLSI chip industry. It is reported that this technology can improve CMOS transistors' performance by up to 40% compared to its current models. The MN2WS0150 system LSI integrates 32-nm generation transistors and Panasonic's UniPhier integrated platform for digital consumer electronics and is designed for Blu-ray Disc players which are compatible with Blu-ray 3D discs. This technology also reduces the mounting footprint by 30% compared to the current models by employing high-density integration of the microscopic transistors and power consumption control according to the LSI's operations.

The Panasonic's 32-nm generation system LSI's is based on the following technologies:
--New CMOS process technologies for multi-Vth based on new gate structure forming technologies employing hafnium (Hf)-based high-k gate dielectrics and metal gate electrodes, and microscopic Cu wiring technologies using ELK (extremely low dielectric constant) dielectrics.
--MPEG-4 MVC (multiview video coding system, an extension to the ITU-T H.264 advanced video coding system) decoding technologies for Blu-ray 3D, HDMI high-speed data transfer circuit technologies, and high-performance and high-speed graphics engine technologies that also support 3D and curved surface drawing.
--Power-saving circuit technologies that minimize power consumption according to the LSI's operations, such as clock frequency control, supply voltage application/shut-off and high-speed analog/digital mixed signal circuit forming technologies.