TSMC, Tsinghua University Co-Announce Feats on 65nm Teamwork

Taipei, Dec. 17, 2010 (CENS)--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Tsinghua University of Beijing yesterday jointly announced several innovative 65-nm tapeouts based on their teamwork.

Using TSMC's proprietary 65nm CyberShuttle prototyping service, the prestigious university in mainland China made breakthroughs in developing phase lock loop and analog digital converter technologies.

Since 2010, TSMC, the No.1 pure foundry, has offered its 65nm and 90nm CyberShuttle Prototyping services to help graduate students at the university's Institute of Microelectronics develop innovative SoC digital, analog and mixed mode ICs.

The institute yesterday announced a phase lock loop highlighting the innovative semi-digital design approach, which fixes power inefficiency and serious electrical leakage blamed on full-analog and full-digital approaches to the loop. The loop design is noted not only for its energy efficiency but also for its smaller geometry relative to traditional designs.

Also, its analog digital converter is prominent, using TSMC's 65nm process to achieve an impressive 95dB of signal to noise plus distortion reduction (SNDR) and 380 microwave of power consumption under one-voltage current. When paring down the current to 0.6 voltage, the converter even maintains SNDR at an outstanding 90.2dB.

Professor Wang Zhihua of the university, a member of an aggressive national program initiated by Chinese government addressing development of advanced information technologies, pointed out that TSMC's 65nm CyberShuttle prototyping service allows the university's researchers to develop innovative IC designs on advanced process technology, helping elevate the mainland's IC design strength.

Executives of TSMC's mainland China operation pointed out that the cooperation has set a good example for future cooperation between the company and the mainland's chip design facilities.