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To: Duker who wrote (2617)	3/8/1999 8:13:00 PM
From: Duker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5867

Lucent, Chartered team on 0.18-micron copper, aluminum interconnects A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc. Story posted 5 p.m. EST/2 p.m. PST, 3/8/99 SINGAPORE -- Lucent Technologies Inc. and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. here today announced an agreement to jointly develop 0.18-micron process technology for high-performance copper and aluminum interconnects. As part of the collaboration, the two companies said they will merge their development efforts for next-generation technologies so that they will have a common manufacturing process using advanced low-k dielectric aluminum and copper interconnects. Lucent has been developing a 0.16-micron process technology, which was slated to be introduced in the year 2000. Chartered was working on a 0.18-micron process. Lucent and Chartered said they plan to begin prototype production with the new 0.18-micron technology in the fourth quarter of 1999, followed by volume production next year. "Our joint development work with Chartered will help us make advanced interconnect technologies with a common tool set available at Silicon Manufacturing Partners [a joint venture foundry in Singapore] and at our other fabs worldwide," said Mark Pinto, chief technology officer for Lucent's Microelectronics Group. "That gives us more flexibility to match manufacturing demand with fab capacity and availability, in-turn helping us deliver customer orders more quickly." The agreement comes two weeks after Chartered and Hewlett-Packard Co. announced a major foundry alliance with Motorola Inc., which will provide its next-generation fabrication technology, including copper interconnect processes. As part of that alliance, a joint-venture foundry operated by Chartered and HP--called Chartered Silicon Partners Pte. Ltd.--will produce products for Motorola, which is in the midst of increasing its use of outside foundries for process wafers (see Feb. 22 story). A spokesman at Chartered said the new joint-development effort with Lucent is aimed at producing a 0.18-micron process technology that will be mostly used by mainstream foundry customers while the Motorola processes will be targeted at high-performance applications, such as powerful computers, servers and communications systems. The new jointly-developed process will be made available to foundry customers without an additional licensing fee, said the Chartered spokesman. Meanwhile, Motorola will collect a royalty from foundry customers for its process technologies. The Chartered/HP joint venture will also produce products for Motorola under the agreement announced two weeks ago. Engineers from both companies will do the initial research at Lucent's R&D facility in Orlando, Fla., and when complete, the process will be transferred to the Lucent-Chartered joint venture fab, Silicon Manufacturing Partners, in Singapore. Both firms will also be able to use the technology at any of their individually owned fabs. The Lucent-Chartered effort is expected to be aimed at developing chips for the data communications, graphics, consumer electronics and mobile systems markets. "The combination of Lucent's advanced interconnect technology and Chartered's own foundry optimized processes will give customers the best of two worlds," stated John Martin, vice-president of technology development at Chartered. "We can provide a leading process from a blue-chip supplier with systems expertise, and at the same time, deliver a process that is foundry-friendly and optimized to the requirements of our diverse customer base."