Freescale marks one year of 90-nm success at 300-mm

Since initiating manufacturing of 90-nm product designs on 300-millimeter (mm) wafers in October 2004, Freescale has introduced 12 new products on 90-nm low-power CMOS technology. Freescale's 90-nm products include digital, analog, RF and embedded memory devices for diverse end applications, such as wireless handsets, printers, enterprise networking components and wireless infrastructure equipment. Freescale has completed these 12 successive 90-nm design releases "right-the-first-time," producing fully functional samples in customer applications after only one pass - a testament to the company's advanced semiconductor process technology, design technology and product design capabilities. This 100 percent first-pass success rate demonstrates Freescale's ability to reduce the design gap between ever-improving technology and manufacturing capabilities and the industry's capacity to generate designs able to keep pace with these advances. High first-pass success rates help minimize the design gap, significantly decrease time to market and reduce the design efforts and costs required for each new product introduction. "We have addressed many of the industry's widely reported challenges with 90-nm and are applying our expertise to the next generations of technology," said Freescale's Chief Technology Officer Dr. Claudine Simson. "Our achievements at 90-nm over the past year set the stage for successful 65-nm prototyping, which we will begin in November." Freescale's newest 90-nm products were introduced in Crolles2, the joint Freescale, STMicroelectronics and Phillips R&D/pilot manufacturing facility located in Crolles, France near the city of Grenoble. The three microelectronics giants lead the Crolles2 Alliance - a partnership established in 2002 to speed the advancement of CMOS process technology.