14 DAY TRIAL // The 45-nanometer process rush seems to have ended right after Intel launched the Penryn series. Foundries have sketched a mass-production plan, but major vendors are already chasing another ghost: the development of high-k dielectrics and metal gates for the 32-nm node.
The high-k and metal gates are the major obstacles to be defeated before switching to a newer generation of semiconductors (especially transistors). Many enterprises have dedicated serious amounts of profit for research and development, in order to find an efficient solution for increasing production of high-k materials and metal gates, while preserving operational efficiency and low costs.
Currently, there are multiple approaches to the same issue: gate-first, replacement-gate and hybrid processes and chip makers are caught in a tight battle for achieving the first working semiconductors.
IBM and their partners, Advanced Micro Devices, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Freescale Semiconductor, Infineon and Samsung have announced their 32-nanometer process and have devised high-k gate-first technology that could be the winning recipe, yet, the process of production is expensive and won't be available until 2009.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) are cooking their own version of the 32-nanometer process, and said that the process is estimated to arrive by the third or fourth quarter of 2009, as a rough technology.
"The challenges for a foundry to develop high-k are the same as for an IDM", said Dean Freeman, an analyst at Gartner (Stamford, Conn.) "They need to develop a transistor process that integrates the high-k [dielectric with the] metal-gate stack. The challenge is to integrate the process correctly."
Other leading-edge foundries, including Fujitsu, Semiconductor International Manufacturing Corp. (SMIC), Toshiba and United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), are separately developing high-k/metal-gate solutions. High-k development is a complex process and for achieving the necessary technology companies are estimated to cash-in about $3 billion - twice as much as the 65-nanometer overall production costs. At the time, only Intel and NEC managed to ship chips built using high-k materials.