IBM and CEA/Leti (the Electronics and Information Technology Laboratory of the CEA) have inked a five-year agreement focused on CMOS process technology at 22nm and beyond.
With this agreement, Grenoble, France-based CEA/Leti becomes a research associate of IBM and IBM’s semiconductor Joint Development Alliance ecosystem centered in Albany, New York. CEA/Leti said it will reinforce this ecosystem through its specific expertise in low-power CMOS (such as SOI technologies), in e-beam lithography, and in nanoscale characterization and modeling.
“Due to increasing complexity, CMOS technologies can only be developed through global alliance," said Laurent Malier, general manager of CEA/Leti, in a statement Thursday. "CEA/Leti chose to partner with IBM since its alliance directly benefits companies with strong industrial activity based in Europe. With 22- and 16-nm nodes ahead of us, many challenges remain to be tackled and we are strongly committed to speeding up the advent of the best options for these technologies.”
The partners believes that the agreement strengthens the links between the IBM and Crolles-Grenoble, France, ecosystems, following STMicroelectronics’ decision to join the IBM Alliance in 2007, for the development of core CMOS and value-added application-specific derivative technologies and industrialization of these processes.
“This agreement reinforces the IBM ecosystem of leading companies and research organizations who are working together to achieve significant advances in semiconductor and nanoelectronics technology,” said Scottie Ginn, VP of IBM design enablement and packaging, in the statement. “This unique model of collaborative development can help accelerate the production of more powerful and energy efficient chips for next-generation computers, consumer electronics and mobile devices.”
The IBM-CEA/Leti collaboration will focus on three key areas: advanced lithography for fast prototyping and 22-nm chip technology; CMOS technologies and low-power devices for 22-nm chip technology and beyond; and technology enablement, including innovative nanoscale characterization techniques for research and for the monitoring of manufacturing protocols.
Research work will be carried out on CEA/Leti’s 300-mm silicon platform in Grenoble, as well as at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany, STMicroelectronics’ facility in Crolles, and IBM’s 300-mm fab in East Fishkill, NY. A team from CEA/Leti will be assigned to work on the program at Albany Nanotech.
"We are very pleased with this agreement between CEA/Leti and IBM," said Jean-Marc Chery, executive VP and CTO at ST, in the statement. "It is within the logic of overall cooperation and it represents an important step for the development of advanced processes which are necessary for the implementation of the core CMOS and value-added applications specific derivative technologies at our Crolles site."
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