65nm LPe Process Reduces Leakage (Ioff) by 20x, Extending Battery Life in High-Volume Mobile Applications

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq:CHRT) and (SGX:CHARTEREDSC), one of the world’s top dedicated foundries, today announced the general availability of an enhanced version of its 65-nanometer (nm) low-power (LP) process, called 65nm LPe. The 65nm LPe process utilizes innovative leakage-reduction techniques to significantly improve system-on-chip (SoC) standby power consumption by up to 50 percent. The result is a lower-power process especially suited for battery-operated and cost-sensitive mobile applications that require active standby conditions, such as mobile handsets, multimedia players or personal internet devices. The process is also supported by a robust range of IP specifically optimized for the lower leakage capabilities.

Chartered is also offering an optimized RF platform solution based on the 65nm LPe process that combines RF physical design kits, broad IP support and a collaborative development system with its partners from the Wireless SoC Platform Alliance (WISPA) consortium. (See additional press release from July 13, 2009: “Chartered Offers 65nm RF Platform To Enable Single-Chip Wireless Applications”).

The 65nm LPe process significantly improves the performance-to-leakage ratio (Ion/Ioff) within the process’ pMOSFET. Given the same Ion (uA/um), the Ioff current is reduced by a magnitude of 20X. This directly impacts the battery life of mobile applications as this leakage improvement is observable in both active and standby situations. In cases where a product operates in long standby situations such as a mobile phone, improvement in the standby power consumption can be as great as 15-25 percent, depending on the application.

A full suite of IP is available for the new process from leading suppliers, including Analog Bits, Aragio Solutions, ARM, Cosmic Circuits, Denali, Synopsys, True Circuits and Virage Logic. The support includes analog front end (AFE), audio codecs, standard interfaces and a range of level physical IP libraries and memory compilers that have been specifically tuned to take advantage of the enhanced leakage capabilities of the process.

“ARM is pleased to expand our long standing relationship with Chartered by offering a full complement of physical IP optimized for Chartered 65LPe process,” said Simon Segars, executive vice president and general manager PIPD division, ARM. “This rich platform of IP includes enhanced memories and logic targeted at improving the performance of ARM processors. All products are supported by the most advanced power management EDA views. We believe this combination of 65LPe process and ARM physical IP is well suited to a range of mainstream applications where leakage optimization is paramount. Through the sponsorship of Chartered, the libraries are free and available today at http://designstart.arm.com.”

“We have worked closely with Chartered to optimize our SiWare™ Memory and SiWare™ Logic solutions to their 65nm LPe process to meet our mutual customers’ SoC requirements,” said Brani Buric, vice president of marketing and sales at Virage Logic. “With a comprehensive dashboard of options, the SiWare product line provides the flexibility needed to efficiently manage design tradeoffs to meet low power as well as performance design requirements.”

Chartered’s enhanced 65nm LPe process features a core 25 angstrom transistor oxide with three voltage options (Standard Vt, Low Vt, High Vt). The High Vt option offers the lowest leakage at 0.01nA/um and 0.007nA/um for the NMOS and PMOS transistors, respectively. Two thick gate oxides are available: a 32A device for 1.8V; and a flexible, IP-enabled 2.5V 52A device that is also useable for 1.8V and 3.3V applications by varying the channel length. The back end of line (BEOL) metal implementation supports up to nine layers of copper to optimize die size and routing efficiency. Manufactured on rotated substrates, the 65LPe process benefits from an increase in the pMOSFET hole mobility and saturation velocity without detrimentally affecting the nMOSFET.

“Today’s high-volume mobile applications require highly optimized silicon solutions that operate in an extremely power-efficient manner, but don’t compromise performance or functionality,” said Brian Klene, vice president, product marketing at Chartered. “Our 65nm LPe process has been developed specifically with extended battery life in mind, with optimizations made to the process itself and our ecosystem of design support to improve efficiency significantly. The 65nm LPe process is a full-featured and flexible platform on which a wide variety of wireless, mobile and multimedia products can be based.”

Industry Support for Chartered 65nm LPe Process

“The Chartered 65nm LPe process is well-suited for the demands of power-sensitive mobile applications. With Analog Bits low-power, clocking macros, programmable interconnects and specialized memories, our customers can realize significant differentiation with high yield and reliability. We have a long heritage and well-proven track record of working closely with Chartered on each successive process generation, and we can optimize our product lines to work very efficiently with their underlying process. This helps streamline the design flow for designers and allows our technology to leverage the full potential of the advances Chartered has made in its manufacturing technology.”

“Recognized worldwide as a premier IP provider, Aragio Solutions has expanded the Chartered 65nm IO offerings to the LPe process node. Using the knowledge and success of prior 65nm low-power and generic process nodes, Aragio has been able to provide a full complement of silicon-proven LPe IO libraries with excellent electrical and ESD performance, enabling high-performance operation for many industry standard interfaces - including USB 2.0, Ethernet, LVDS, Mobile DDR and DDR - as well as RF and Analog ESD protection circuitry. The diverse number of metal options made available for clients points to the team effort required between Chartered and Aragio to make this program successful.”

“Cosmic Circuits, a leading provider of differentiated analog and mixed-signal IP cores, has enjoyed a history of tight partnership with Chartered, especially in the nanometer technology nodes. We are happy that our joint efforts on the 65nm LPe node have also been successful. It enables our common customers to leverage a portfolio of silicon-proven mixed-signal cores, including data-converters and power-management for low-power portable applications. This was essentially possible through the early access to Chartered’s process technology, and through the R&D investments that Cosmic Circuits continually makes. Following this launch, we look forward to serve customers actively and experience all-around success.”

“Denali and Chartered have taped out Denali’s LPDDR1/DDR2 memory controller and digital PHY on the 65nm LPe process. Our customers will be attracted to the enhanced speed of the Chartered 65nm LPe process, where we’ve achieved timing at 800MT/s and transfer rates up to 3.2GBytes/sec over a 32-bit DDR2 memory interface, while giving the flexibility to support low-power LPDDR1 memories on the same interface.”

“The 65nm process node is a mainstream design node for SoC developers in the consumer multimedia markets in terms of its low-power performance and production yield capabilities. We offer a broad portfolio of analog IP including audio codecs and interface IP, such as USB, HDMI, PCI Express and SATA for Chartered’s 65nm LPe node to enable SoC designs to get to market faster with lower risk.”

About Chartered

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (Nasdaq:CHRT) (SGX:CHARTEREDSC), one of the world’s top dedicated semiconductor foundries, offers leading-edge technologies down to 40/45 nanometer (nm), enabling today’s system-on-chip designs. The company further serves its customers’ needs through a collaborative, joint development approach on a technology roadmap that extends to 22nm. Chartered’s strategy is based on open and comprehensive design enablement solutions, manufacturing enhancement strategies, and a commitment to flexible sourcing. In Singapore, the company owns or has an interest in six fabrication facilities, including a 300mm fabrication facility and five 200mm facilities. Information about Chartered can be found at www.charteredsemi.com.

Chartered U.S.:
Tiffany Sparks, 1-408-941-1185
tiffanys@charteredsemi.com
or
Chartered Singapore:
Celestine Lim, (65) 6360-4017
celestinelim@charteredsemi.com