Philips extends research contract

Royal Philips Electronics has signed an agreement that extends its access to IMEC's advanced research facilities and expertise until the end of 2008.

Royal Philips Electronics has signed an agreement that extends its access to IMEC's advanced research facilities and expertise until the end of 2008.

This new agreement, which closely follows Philips' decision last year to become a core partner in IMEC's sub-45nm CMOS research programme, will allow Philips through its Philips Research Leuven organisation to further extend joint research with IMEC of specialised semiconductor processes, as well as to engage in joint research and development of advanced CMOS technologies in preparation of continued process development with Philips' Crolles2 Alliance partners.

For leading consumer electronics companies like Philips, having access to state-of-the-art semiconductor technology is the key to delivering ever-richer experiences to consumers in areas such as multimedia entertainment and communications.

However, in addition to the baseline CMOS processes used to produce the powerful digital chips at the heart of these applications, companies also need special semiconductor processes to produce chips that can handle associated tasks such as wireless communications, power amplification and display driving.

Philips' commitment to differentiating itself in the marketplace by providing total system solutions rather than component parts means that development of these special semiconductor processes is as important to the company as having state-of-the-art CMOS.

"It is thanks to our previous collaboration with IMEC that important differentiators, such as our world-beating RF BiCMOS processes, our highly effective nonvolatile embedded memory solutions and our best-in-class TrenchMOS devices, have been made possible", said Theo Claasen, Executive Vice President Technology and Strategy, Philips Semiconductors.

"This new agreement with IMEC therefore represents an important part of our strategy to keep Philips in a highly competitive position at the forefront of the semiconductor industry".

"This new agreement with Philips is based on the excellent relationship we have built up over recent years.

This collaboration between a leading research centre and a major player in semiconductors and consumer electronics brings a lot of value to both partners.

It helps IMEC to remain focused on process technologies enabling globally competitive applications.

This agreement further increases IMEC's critical mass on process technology and therefore strengthens its position as a global research foundry in nanoelectronics", said Prof Gilbert Declerck, President and CEO of IMEC.

The agreement, which will run for five years, replaces an existing agreement that was scheduled to finish by mid 2005.

It not only guarantees Philips a unique level of access to and interaction with the expertise of IMEC's research scientists.

It also allows Philips to use state-of-the-art equipment within IMEC's existing and newly built clean-room facilities to develop process steps on both 200 and 300mm wafers, thereby providing high quality input to Philips' advanced production fabs.

Philips' past collaboration with IMEC has already seen several new process technologies being transferred to Philips wafer fabs in East Fishkill (USA), Nijmegen (The Netherlands) and Hazel Grove (UK).

Philips now works with IMEC on three levels: as a core partner in IMEC's sub-45nm CMOS research programme and in JRP with IMEC on a 45nm CMOS research programme (in preparation for continued semiconductor process development within the Philips/Motorola/STMicroelectronics Crolles2 Alliance); as an individual partner with IMEC in the development of Philips-specific special process technologies; and as a valued contributor to discussions over the future direction of semiconductor research at IMEC.

This unique level of co-operation between Philips and IMEC, together with collaborative research undertaken by leading technical universities in the area, further strengthens the Eindhoven-Leuven corridor as one of the world's centres of excellence for semiconductor research.

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