First wafers processed at Crolles using 0.25 micron technology

Having successfully produced several prototype integrated circuits, SGS-THOMSON will supply full design tools to lead customers, mostly in the computer/peripheral and communication/multimedia market sectors at the end of the year. The first prototypes of customer designs will start production in the second quarter of 1997.

Joel Monnier, SGS-THOMSON Corporate Vice President, Research and Development, said : "This achievement is part of our technology road-map. We achieved the same milestone with the previous generation technology at 0.35 micron just sixteen months ago. I am very proud that SGS-THOMSON can master these highly complex process technologies and put them into volume production so quickly. The development of the next generation process is going on. We have already demonstrated fully functional transistors at 0.18 micron and the development of the complete process is continuing."

Daniel Bois, CNET-Grenoble Centre Director, said: "This new result, in line with the time schedule, demonstrates the good exchanges between advanced researches driven at CNET and developments driven at Crolles Joint Research Centre. This new process is a key achievement for the development of very advanced telecom systems and services. It will allow us to integrate on a chip the high bit rate ATM and Multimedia circuits at low cost and with reduced power consumption for future France Telecom services."

The 0.25 micron process has been developed in the Crolles pilot line where SGS-THOMSON operates a Joint Research Centre for advanced technologies together with France Telecom-CNET and is also working with Philips, demonstrating a cooperative spirit within the European projects ESPRIT, JESSI and the forthcoming MEDEA project. The development of this process is also due to the advanced work performed in association with Gressi, the silicon research partnership between the two Grenoble-based laboratories France Telecom CNET and CEA -LETI .

SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics is a global independent semiconductor company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and on the Bourse de Paris. It designs, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) and discrete devices used in a wide variety of microelectronic applications, including telecommunication systems, computer systems, consumer products, automotive products and industrial automation and control systems.

France Telecom - CNET is the research organization of France Telecom. The Grenoble centre is focused on silicon-based microelectronics and software dedicated to telecommunications networks and services management.It contributes to the CNET innovation in the field of ATM, digital TV, smart cards, mobiles, etc.

Technical details of the 0.25 micron process technology

• an advanced transistor architecture, incorporating shallow trench isolation
  
• an effective gate length of 0.20 micron.
  
• up to six layers of metal interconnect
  
• 5nm gate thickness.
  

These features enable designers to pack more than 30,000 gates on to each square millimeter of silicon, which is more than double the gate density of the previous 0.35 micron process and give designers the capability to incorporate up to ten million gates on to the same silicon chip. Two types of applications have been targeted initially. The first is for applications that require high speed operation, such as computer circuits. For this type of application, the IC can operate at 2.5V with a clock frequency of 400MHz, which is twice as fast as circuits used in today's PCs.

The second type of application is for systems that require low power consumption, such as digital mobile phones. For these applications, the 0.25 micron technology can be used to create circuits which operate at 1V, resulting in a five-to-ten-fold improvement in power dissipation or a 50% improvement in speed, when compared to the 0.35 micron process.

An important feature for 'superintegrated' ICs is the ability to incorporate high density SRAM and DRAM memory modules larger than 1Mbit and high-precision analog functions with complex logic functions. These capabilities have already been proved in previous technologies (e.g.1Mbit DRAM macro in 0.35╡m logic multimedia-dedicated chips), so with the increased gate density of the 0.25 micron process, designers will be able to create complete systems on a single IC. Examples could include, a single chip DVD processor, a set-top box implemented on a single IC, and a single chip GSM.

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