SMIC 65-nm technology successfully moves to volume production

SHANGHAI, USA: Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), a world leading semiconductor foundry and the most advanced in Mainland China, announced that its Low Leakage 65-nanometer (nm) technology, implemented at SMIC's 300mm facility in Beijing, has successfully moved to Volume Production Stage.

The 65-nm accumulative wafer shipment has achieved over 10,000 pieces since its mass production began in Q3 2009.

With more than ten customer -both FOT (Foundry Owned-Tooling) and COT (Customer Owned-Tooling) - in development and production, SMIC's 65-nm logic technology provides higher levels of integration and performance improvement with low power consumption and significantly smaller size.

Currently engaged applications include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDTV, AV-decoder, TD-SCDMA chips, and application processors. The 65-nm process is supported by SMIC's design services group which adheres to a rigid design methodology, featuring DFM-compliant products and services. In addition to SMIC's in-house IP and library, 3rd party solutions are also available on the 65-nm technology node.

The comprehensive IP solution offers customers a number of advantages in flexibility to streamline the design flow, reduce design investment and improve time to market.
The transition from 65-nm to 55-nm technology is also being developed, the 55-nm technology is a 90% linear-shrink process from 65nm including I/O and analog circuits.

"SMIC's 65-nm can take designs at 65-nm and aim it toward the advantages of 55-nm, I'm delighted with the progress of SMIC's 65/55-nm project team which continues to meet rigorous deadlines," said Chris Chi, senior VP and chief business officer of SMIC.

"Our 65-nm technology provides our leading customers unprecedented opportunities to further consolidate their leadership positions in their respective industries. The significant decrease in size, improvements in power consumption, higher speed, lower leakage enable SMIC clients to bring highly differentiated products to the marketplace."

SMIC's 65nm capacity expansion implementation is ongoing to meet increasing customer demand. Currently, SMIC's 65-nm MPW service is available every other month throughout 2010.