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IBM has entered into a multi-year agreement with Infineon Technologies AG and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing to speed up the process of 65-nanometer chip development.
According to an announcement released on Wednesday, the three companies will dedicate almost 200 engineers to the effort of creating semiconductor manufacturing technologies on 65-nm—and later 45-nm—chips and implemented on 300-mm silicon wafers.
They also will focus on variants of the process for such aspects as high performance and low power.
The work will be done at IBMs new 300-mm development laboratory—called the Advanced Semiconductor Technology Center, or ASTC 300—in East Fishkill, N.Y., according to IBM officials. That lab started operations in July.
The companies will be able to take the technologies that are developed to their own manufacturing facilities, IBM said. Both IBM and Chartered, of Singapore, said they plan to offer 65-nm development processes at their 300-mm fabs, and will support demand for Infineon demand for 65-nm products.
The announcement came the same day that Infineon, of Munich, Germany, wrapped up its joint agreement with Singapore-based United Microelectronics Corp. on development of a 90-nm development process. Infineon also sold back to UMC its share in UMCi Pte Ltd., a manufacturing venture created by Infineon, UMC and Singapores Economic Development Board investment unit.
In January, IBM entered into an agreement with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to do similar work on 65-nm and 45-nm chips at IBMs Semiconductor Research and Development Center.