Korean-based Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., announced this week it has developed a 90-nm logic process technology for system on a chip (SOC) designs.

Samsung plans to establish its 90-nm process portfolio with high-speed, low-voltage, memory embedded and mixed signal RF features by 2003. Mass production for the 90-nm process technology is slated for 2004. Samsung's initial applications of the technology will be in mobile phone CPUs, which the company considers one of its future core businesses, and SOC devices.

The major benefit of the 90-nm process technology is its enhanced speed and low-power consumption requirements. Among the features of Samsung's design are an ultra thin 1.6-nm gate insulating film, a 70-nm effective gate length, an ultra shallow junction technology and copper damascene technology using low-k dielectric.

In contrast to the current 0.13-micron process technology Samsung expects speeds to be enhanced by 30 percent, while memory density in SOC products is improved by integrating a 1.25-square micron SRAM cell, reducing the chip area by approximately 50 percent. The smaller chip size is also expected to reduce manufacturing costs.

The International Technology Roadmap of Semiconductor (ITRS) has predicted that 90-nm process technology will be commercialized in 2004.

In addition to being the world's largest producer of memory chips, the company is also the world's leading prodcuer of smart card chips, display driver ICs, TFT-LCDs, CDMA mobile phones, monitors and VCRs.