Tower Semiconductor Ltd. announced the availability of a Laterally Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor (LDMOS) process, its latest addition to the 0.18µ technology platform. High voltage technology enables designers to integrate high-density logic and mixed-signal circuits together with high-voltage drivers on a single chip. High-voltage LDMOS technology is widely used in LCD drivers for cell phone and other hand-held displays, enabling smaller board area and lower power consumption, while providing the capability to handle high image rates.
Operating at 12V gate and up to 25V source/drain, the new devices can be easily used with Tower's off-the-shelf 0.18µ devices, such as one-time programmable (OTP) and multi-time programmable (MTP) memory solutions, as well as Tower's portfolio of libraries and intellectual property (IP) circuits. Utilizing a highly effective trench isolation scheme, such products exhibit low noise and high immunity to latch-up. Further development also is being done in order to enhance this offering with 40V source/drain and lower power-on resistance, while reducing mask count. Such offering also addresses the specifications of a wide variety of power-management products.
"The addition of this high-voltage technology offering enables us to provide additional solutions to consumer markets of high demand," said Yossi Netzer, General Manager of Mixed Signal and RF-CMOS Product line at Tower Semiconductor. "The process was tuned to meet the unique specifications of portable displays."
The high-voltage technology is also available on Tower's shuttle program for fast and inexpensive design verification and engineering samples.
