LONDON – Mixed-signal chip company Analog Devices Inc. (Norwood, Mass.) and foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) have announced they are collaborating on the development of a 0.18-micron BCD analog manufacturing process that can offer high precision analog ICs.
Analog Devices has already used the process for a range of products including isolated CAN transceivers; a HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) modem IC; an ECG analog front-end; a series of digital potentiometers, and an audio codec.
The 0.18-micron BCD process supports a range of operating voltages and at 5-volt Vcc offers an order of magnitude improvement in noise over the previous process, 70 percent lower standby leakage current, a 50 percent improvement in linearity and 50 percent better capacitor and resistor matching, the companies said.
The manufacturing process is expected to improve analog performance in a variety of devices including A/D and D/A converters, power management devices, and audio coders/decoders.
The process was described as being a TSMC process so it is expected that TSMC will now be able to offer the process up to customers besides Analog Devices.
Related links and articles:
www.analog.com
News articles:
Analog Devices buys clock technology specialist
European report considers 450-mm More-than-Moore fab
Analog Devices to launch dual-core Blackfin with a vision accelerator