UMC develops FinFET process to beat TSMC

Published:2012/7/29 23:07:00 Author:Ecco From:SeekIC

Taiwan’s United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) has been developing FinFET process technology to struggle with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC). As we know, TSMC is a foundry leader on the production of FinFET process technology. In fact, TSMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) was one of the originators of the FinFET idea more than a decade ago.

According to a spokesperson, UMC has licensed is for FinFETs on bulk silicon rather than on silicon-on-insulator wafers. This makes it easier to introduce quickly after a running a 20-nm bulk CMOS process. Reports suggest that making sure fins are well defined with a rectangular cross section can make a marked difference to performance and that making FinFETs on SOI wafers could produce a further improvement in leakage current performance.

In a conference call to discuss UMC’s second quarter financial results, Shih-Wei Sun, CEO of UMC did not demur when it was put to him that UMC was targeting 2014 for the introduction of 20-nm FinFETs. He introduced that UMC’s first FinFET would be based on the same 20-nm back-end process as a 20-nm planar CMOS.

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