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IBM, Infineon, UMC to develop leading technologies

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: IBM, Infineon Technologies AG and UMC, a semiconductor foundry, with headquarters located in Taiwan on Thursday announced plans to jointly develop leading technologies for use in the production of semiconductors.

A press release jointly issued on Thursday said under the agreement, the three companies will work together to develop common process technologies for building logic chips with feature sizes from 0.13 to 0.10 micron (one micron equals 1/100 the width of human hair). These new processes will incorporate copper wiring and allow logic and mixed-signal circuitry.

The development work will be conducted by a team of scientists and engineers from all three companies at the IBM Semiconductor Research and Development Centre (SRDC) in the United States.

Each company will then have the ability to implement the processes in its own manufacturing facilities. The current development agreement extends through 2003.