The scattering of the Crolles2 partners is now complete, with STMicroelectronics saying it will join up with IBM for basic semiconductor process R&D, following the example of its former Crolles compatriot Freescale which announced it was joining the IBM group some months ago. The third member of the Crolles2 triumvirate, NXP, departed Crolles to join TSMC earlier in the year.
In going back to America for its process technology ST completes an historical circle. In the early 1960s, SGS, the forerunner of ST, went to Fairchild Semiconductor for the technology to manufacture ICs. Harry Sello, a former Shockley-ite who became a Fairchild manager, was sent over to Agrate to get SGS into the chip business.
Now, nearly half a century later, ST is going to another US company, IBM, for its technology.
The IBM R&D alliance has two levels. At one level of the IBM alliance are the ‘Common Platform’ partners which are IBM, Samsung Electronics and Chartered Semiconductor, at the other level there are the ‘Joint-Development’ partners which are IBM, Infineon Technologies and Freescale Semiconductor.
ST has joined both as a common platform partner and as a joint development partner.
Being a common platform partner means that ST need never build another 300mm advanced CMOS fab. It will be able to get its advanced CMOS processing done either at IBM on a foundry basis, or at Chartered on a foundry basis.
With ST's 300mm fab at Catania being transferred into the Numonyx flash joint venture between ST and Intel, that means the Crolles 300mm line is the only 300mm fab to which ST has access. And it could be the last one to which it will have access.
Under the IBM technology alliance, the basic process research is done at IBM’s East Fishkill R&D centre, with ST saying it will produce ‘derivatives’ of that basic process at Crolles.
The intention of the IBM partners is to begin 32nm product qualification by year-end 2009, while the common platform partners, Chartered and Samsung are looking to start 32nm production in Q1 2010. That presumalby now applies to ST as well.
TSMC and IMEC, the other two bodies pursuing 32nm process technology, naturally have the same timetable.
By all accounts of the day-to-day workings at East Fishkill, this is not, like Crolles 2 was, a combination of equals, all having an equal say. IBM may call itself a partner among partners, but it is very much primus inter pares.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
