AMIS, IMEC collaborate on next-generation Smart Power integration technologies

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- 1/28/2008

AMI Semiconductor has teamed with European research center IMEC to develop the mixed-signal and digital products manufacturer’s future Smart Power integration technologies.

The two-year collaboration program will see AMIS develop Smart Power processes and devices in IMEC's 200-mm facilities, and use IMEC’s know-how and experience in deep submicron process technology. A team of on-site AMIS engineers will jointly work with IMEC engineers in the IMEC premises in Leuven, Belgium, in close collaboration with the AMIS Smart Power team in Oudenaarde, Belgium.

“This collaborative agreement will allow us to develop our next-generation I4T Smart Power technology platform while protecting our differentiating and critical IP,” Christine King, CEO of AMIS, said in a statement today. “IMEC is the ideal collaborative partner because of its advanced infrastructure, its outstanding engineering competences, and its business model. Furthermore, being close to our Smart Power team in Oudenaarde is an important asset.”

While AMIS and IMEC have worked together for the last 20 years, this agreement marks the first time part of the AMIS advanced technology R&D are moving into IMEC's premises.

I4T will be the fourth generation of the AMIS Smart Power technology, which the company described a platform that as allows the integration of high voltage and power functions with dense logic, processors, and memories into a single device. I4T will focus on complex SoC Smart Power systems for next-generation automotive, power regulation, and communications applications, Pocatello, Idaho-based AMIS said.

“IMEC is happy to strengthen, with this cooperation agreement, the activities of AMIS in the Flemish region of Belgium,” Gilbert Declerck, IMEC’s CEO, said in the statement. “The new project with AMIS fits IMEC's CMORE program, targeted at R&D for new fabrication processes and device technologies focusing on performance and new functions, rather than further scaling of transistors.”

CMORE makes use of IMEC's 200-mm processing facility with a 130-nm/90-nm CMOS platform technology. As part of CMORE program, IMEC is developing SiGe-based integrated MEMS processes and devices, thin film technology for integrated passive components and submicron silicon on insulator-based photonic devices.

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