March 5, 2002 – Eindhoven, Netherlands, Geneva, Switzerland, and Hsinchu, Taiwan – Royal Philips Electronics, STMicroelectronics, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC) have reached an agreement on a new advanced 90nm CMOS process. The agreement between the three companies also includes the development of CMOS processes to the next technology node at 65nm and beyond.

Test devices for 90nm have already been successfully fabricated by ST and Philips in Crolles, France, and by TSMC in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Prototyping of 90nm products is expected to take place in 2H02. This development was made possible by leveraging the technical expertise of all three companies’ internal R&D teams and customer engineering organizations.

The 90nm process involves the collaborative resources of all three partners and their associated advanced laboratories, including Philips Research, IMEC, CEA/LETI, and France Telecom R&D.

The joint development agreement between Philips, ST, and TSMC is expected to provide designers with early access to 90nm technology that is quickly transferable to high-volume production by all three companies, the companies said.

This joint project extends existing alliances among the three companies. ST and Philips’ semiconductors division have been cooperating since 1992 on joint development of CMOS digital and mixed-signal processes. Similarly, Philips and TSMC have collaborated in process R&D since the founding of TSMC in 1987.