Date: 30/11/2010

MPW semiconductor foundry services from AMS is made more extensive

austriamicrosystems has made IC prototyping service, known as Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) or shuttle run, with an even more extensive schedule in 2012. The prototyping service, which combines several designs from different customers onto a single wafer, offers significant cost advantages for foundry customers as the costs for wafers and masks are shared among a number of different shuttle participants.

austriamicrosystems said its best-in-class MPW service includes the whole range of 0.18µm and 0.35µm specialty processes. In order to provide leading analog semiconductor process technology, manufacturing and services, austriamicrosystems now offers four MPW runs in the 0.18µm CMOS (C18) process as well as four MPW runs in its advanced 0.18µm High-Voltage CMOS (H18) technology. The H18 process technology is based on IBM's industry proven 0.18µm CMOS process CMOS7RF and offers industry-first RF (Radio Frequency) integration and high density SoC (System on a Chip) capability, as per austriamicrosystems. It is perfectly suited for applications such as smart sensors, sensor interface devices, smart meters, industrial and building controls and LED lighting control in the automotive, industrial and medical markets, adds austriamicrosystems.

Technology and procedural details said by austriamicrosystems are as below:
For the 0.35µm specialty processes, which are based on the 0.35µm CMOS process transferred from TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), a total of 15 runs are offered in 2012: austriamicrosystems' 0.35µm High-Voltage CMOS process family with a 20V CMOS option -- which is ideally suited for power management products and display drivers, a 50V CMOS process -- which has been optimized for automotive and industrial applications, and a 120V module -- which meets the requirements of sensor and sensor interface chips in high-voltage applications. The advanced High-Voltage CMOS process with Embedded Flash functionality adds to austriamicrosystems' MPW service portfolio. The CMOS compatible 0.35µm Silicon-Germanium BiCMOS technology (S35) enables RF circuit designs with an operating frequency of up to 7 GHz combined with high-density digital parts on one single ASIC.