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Philips Proves First Silicon from CMOS Production Line

May 10, 2004 by Jeff Shepard

Royal Philips Electronics (the Netherlands) announced a significant milestone in putting 90 nm CMOS chips into production by achieving silicon from its CMOS production line at the Crolles2 wafer fab in Crolles, France, and from TSMC's wafer fab in Taiwan. The Philips CMOS090LP is one of the world's first system-on-chip solutions to be fabricated in a low-leakage, 90 nm CMOS process.

The lead silicon integrates an ARM processor core with SRAM, ROM and analog signal circuitry designed for a wireless application. The 90 nm CMOS process has been specially developed by Philips and its Crolles2 Alliance partners, Motorola and STMicroelectronics. The CMOS090LP process achieves power savings up to 75 percent compared to a 0.18-micron CMOS implementation. In terms of the silicon area occupied by digital circuitry, it offers up to four times reduction.