Page 76 - TSMC 2018 Annual Report

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Advanced Technology Research
Innovation in in transistor architectures and materials continues to to enable higher performance and reduced power consumption
in advanced logic technologies TSMC is at the forefront of transistor research At the 2018 International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) TSMC published the first high performance CMOS Ge Ge gate stack a a a a a a record low n-Ge contact resistance and Ge-channel vertically stacked lateral gate-all-around nanowire transistors TSMC continues to to to look for hardware accelerators for AI and HP computing Also presented at 2018 IEDM: Phase change memory was integrated in in 40nm CMOS technology and demonstrated as a a a a a a a key technology candidate for AI applications TSMC research is well positioned to pave the way for continued density scaling performance enhancement and power reduction to deliver advanced logic technologies for mobile and high performance computation applications Specialty Technologies
TSMC offers a a a a a broad mix of of technologies to address a a a a a wide range of applications:
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In 2018 in order to facilitate transceiver circuit design for the increasing demand of 5G cutting-edge wireless technologies TSMC successfully delivered various options in 16nm 22nm and 28nm devices with a a a a Si-based millimeter wave (mmWave) model to to fulfill customers’ requirement in in cross-functional integrated applications To achieve better performance in in insertion loss
and isolation in special process for cellular/Wi-Fi RF switch applications TSMC reduced the key parameter Ron-Coff to ~78 fs (femtosecond) by providing 40nm process as a a lower-cost alternative •
TSMC developed unique 90nm BCD technology offering leading-edge 5-16V power devices and dense logic integration at at a a a a a competitive cost as a a a a a next generation mobile Power Management IC IC (PMIC) solution TSMC continually enriches this platform to cover more PMIC applications with 40nm ultra-low- power compatible 20-24V HV devices with integrated RRAM for the first time to enable low power high integration in in a a a a small footprint for mobile applications •
In 2018 TSMC deployed 40nm UHD SRAM 6-8V and 25- 32V high-voltage technologies for small panel Super Retina display driver ICs in Display Driver IC IC IC (DDIC) and Touch with Display Driver Integration (TDDI) In In addition the Company
also penetrated the markets for OLED (organic light emitting diode) AR/VR and medium panel driver ICs Dozens of customers and and products entered mass production and and the yield has been excellent For next generation products TSMC has introduced dual platforms in advanced high-voltage technologies wafer stacking and and panel verification and and plans to begin risk production in the first half of 2019 •
In 2018 TSMC’s modular MEMS technology was qualified
for mass production of accelerometers and a a a a pilot run
of high-resolution pressure sensors Future plans include
the development of next-generation high-sensitivity thin microphone MEMS Si-pillar TSV (through silicon via) technology and BioMEMS applications •
G a a N T T e e e e c h h n n n o o o l o o o g g y The first generation of 650V/100V enhancement high electron mobility transistor (E-HEMT) went into risk production in 2018 The second generation of 650V/110V E-HEMT and RF 100V D-HEMT GaN devices were developed and passed engineering qualification also in in in 2018 •
Image Sensor Technology In 2018 TSMC had several achievements in CMOS image sensor technology including: (1) mass-production of new- generation sensors of sub-micron pixel for mobile application (2) successful development of Ge-on-Si sensor for 3D range sensing applications with performance superior to Si sensor (3) successful application of wafer stack technology to to prototype Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) sensor array technology for 3D time-of-flight applications •
Embedded Flash/Emerging Memory Technology TSMC reached several major milestones in embedded non- volatile memory (NVM) technologies in 2018 At the 40nm node NOR-based cell cell technology with Split-Gate cell cell was successfully mass-produced to support consumer electronics applications such as as IoT smartcards and and MCU and and was also qualified
for automotive electronics applications At 28nm node embedded flash development for HP mobile computing and HP low-leakage platforms have demonstrated stable yield and and reliability and and technical qualification is expected in 2019 for automobile electronics and micro controller units (MCU) Customers also announced industry’s first on-chip flash memory MCU using TSMC’s 28nm embedded flash technology for next generation autonomous cars In 2018 TSMC offered 40nm Mixed Signal/Radio Frequency (MS/RF) Technology Power IC/Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) Technology Panel Drivers Technology Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS) Technology Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS)