NEC and ATMOS to make DRAM for communications

NEC Electronics and ATMOS Corp are to develop and offer high-performance embedded DRAM aimed at communications and wireless industries.

NEC Electronics and ATMOS Corp are to develop and offer high-performance embedded DRAM aimed at communications and wireless industries.

An unprecedented combination of processor speed, memory size and minimal die area is required today for the manufacture of consumer products such as high-end networking systems including ATM switches and routers; hand-held wireless devices and cell phones; and business tools such as printers and PC graphics cards.

NEC and ATMOS seek to advance the evolution of such devices through the joint development of two macrocells (complete designs for a particular chip function).

One will be based on the combination of ATMOS SoC-RAM embedded DRAM architecture and NEC's 0.15-micron embedded DRAM process.

With random access speeds reaching 400MHz, this memory design is tailored to applications where speed and performance are prime considerations, such as digital signal processing and packet processing applications.

"The amount of memory available, and the speed with which it can be accessed are key to providing feature-rich products that perform diverse tasks", explained Hideya Horikawa, Design Engineering Manager of NEC Electronics "Embedded DRAM is highly suited to span the needs of high-end communications systems for business while also meeting the diverse requirements of consumer products.

The ATMOS SoC-RAM embDRAM architecture and design methodology fits these technology and end-user strategies exceptionally well".

"By combining the innovative, performance-oriented ATMOS memory architecture with NEC's best-in-breed embedded DRAM process, customers now have the opportunity to create truly high-performance, differentiated products required by the next generation of systems products".

Said Al Hawtin, VP Marketing and Sales of ATMOS.

"With embedded memory requirements expanding dramatically both in size and speed, customers benefit from a proven, robust design and manufacturing capability from two of the world leaders in this advanced SoC technology".

NEC will fabricate the test chips and later serve ATMOS' customers as a volume manufacturing source.

ATMOS will evaluate the test chips for adherence to design architecture parameters and also qualify both bare die and package devices.

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