June 19, 2007 – Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. says it has begun the “world[‘s] first” mass production of 45nm LSI chips at its factory in Uozu, central Japan, using ArF immersion lithography (NA>1) with “proprietary super-resolution enhancement technology” and multilayer wiring using low-k dielectrics (no value given). Compared with the company’s 65nm-based chips, the 45nm versions reduce power consumption and required surface area by between 50%-67%, the company indicated.

First off the 45nm production lines, according to Matsushita, is a 45nm version of its UniPhier system LSI, offering high-performance for processing motion/still image data with integrated AV data compression/decompression (codec) technology, to be used in all of the company’s Panasonic-branded digital AV devices.

With the 45nm architecture, high-definition images can be compressed down to 50%-33% of conventional methods while retaining high image quality, the company explained. This solves size and power consumption problems due to the large circuits scale of HD-compliant AV coded chips vs. conventional standard-definition quality, which is a problem with LSIs using 65nm processes.