NEC Electron Devices will standardize its UX6 0.1-micron process technology with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

NEC has used TSMC production capacity to meet orders that exceed its own plants’ capacity. But since the two companies processes were different, the designs had to be redone. Now the companies plan to use common design rules and transistor characteristics, so redo time will be cut to about 1/6.

NEC will standardize its UX6 high speed and standard cores and peripheral transistors with TSMC, which will use 65nm gates, and 1.6nm gate dielectric layers of SiO2, surface treated by radical nitridation to reduce gate leaks. The technology, planned for 1Q03, will use 9 layers of copper and a low-k dielectric of 2.4k or less. Next generation UX7 technology slated for 2005 will use 45nm gates.

//Nikkei Micro Devices