Jazz Semi Announces BCD Process for Power Management and High Voltage Applications
Jazz Semiconductor announced the availability of its 0.25µ Bipolar CMOS DMOS (BCD25) processes targeted for the emerging power management and high voltage markets. The Jazz 0.25µ offering provides a migration path from its 0.5µ, 40V BCD process. Jazz BCD25 can provide significant cost reductions by allowing designers of power devices to achieve a shrink of up to fifty-percent in device area size as compared to BCD05. BCD processes incorporate, into a single foundry process flow, what are typically three different device types: Bipolar, for analog control; CMOS, for digital control; and DMOS, for handling the high voltages required for managing on-chip or system power.
Jazz BCD25 processes offer advanced CMOS, a combination of bipolar NPN and PNP devices, as well as high voltage LDMOS FETs that take advantage of 0.25µ rules to reduce on-resistance and size of power cells used in complex power management chips including driver ICs, battery and portable power management, power control for PC products, and Class-D audio amplifiers for both fixed and low-power mobile applications. The Jazz BCD25 process features 5V CMOS with a future option for dual gate 3.3/5V CMOS, a 1K ohm poly resistor, MIM capacitors, a broad voltage range of LDMOS transistors that is designed to operate at 12V, 20V and 40V with ultra low Rdson at all voltage levels, VIA stacking, thick top power metal (3um) for improved current-carrying capacity, ESD protection circuits, and triple well isolation. BCD25 reuses existing high performance and high density features from Jazz Semiconductor's existing, high volume 0.35 and 0.25µ processes.
"The increase in power management at the system level has created a unique opportunity for foundries in the analog space to expand their specialty processes," said Joanne Itow, Managing Director, Semico Research. "Jazz Semiconductor's extension of its specialty offerings from SiGe and RFCMOS for RF, to BCD for power management, underscores their commitment to the specialty foundry model."
"Our 0.25µ BCD process expands our technology roadmap for BCD smart-power, high voltage CMOS and complementary bipolar processes," said Marco Racanelli, Vice President of Technology and Engineering, Jazz Semiconductor. "We have positioned our BCD25 offering as a natural, cost-effective path from BCD05. At the same time, we have carefully chosen proven Jazz modules to enable a quick transition to production."
Jazz Semiconductor offers a full design kit and modeling support for the BCD25 process including support for digital standard cells and analog models for all devices. The design kit also includes a novel scalable model for the LDMOS devices that allows designers to vary the voltage rating (and Rdson) of the high voltage LDMOS devices continuously from 20 to 40V rather than making use of fixed cells as typically done in the past. This provides IC designers an added tool in optimizing the tradeoff between die area and voltage handling performance to result in the lowest die cost for a wider variety of applications.
