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TSMC Releases Ultra-Low Power Platform for IOT and Wearables

2014/10/17 | By Ken Liu

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has released the silicon-foundry segment's first and most comprehensive ultra-low power platform for a wide range of applications for the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IOT) and wearable device markets that require a wide spectrum of technologies to best serve these diverse applications.

The major supplier of built-to-order chips developed the technology in partnership with chip design houses ARM Ltd., Cadence Design Systems Inc., CSR Plc., Fujitsu Semiconductors Ltd., Nordic Semiconductor ASA, Silicon Labs Inc., Realtek Semiconductor Corp., and Synopsys Inc.

According to TSMC, this platform enables multiple processes that provide significant power-reduction benefits to IoT and wearable products and a comprehensive design ecosystem to accelerate time-to-market for customers.

TSMC's ultra-low power process lineup expands from the existing 0.18-micron extremely low leakage (0.18eLL), 90-nanometer ultra low leakage (90uLL) and 16-nanometer FinFET technologies to the brand new 55-nanometer ultra-low power (55ULP), 40ULP and 28ULP, which support processing speeds up to 1.2GHz.

The wide spectrum of ultra-low power processes ranging from 0.18-micron to 16-nanometer FinFET is ideal for a variety of smart and power-efficient applications on the IoT and wearable device markets. Radio frequency and embedded Flash memory capabilities are also available in 0.18um to 40nm ultra-low power technologies, enabling system level integration for smaller form factors and facilitating wireless connections among IoT products.

Compared with their previous generations, the latest TSMC ultra-low power processes further reduce operating voltages 20% to 30% to lower both active power and standby power consumption and, therefore, boost life of  compact batteries in IoT and wearable applications by two to 10 folds.

TSMC President and Co-Chief Executive Officer Mark Liu noted this is the first time in the silicon-foundry industry for a foundry to supply a comprehensive platform to meet the demands and innovation for the versatile Internet of Things market where ultra-low power and ubiquitous connectivity are critical.

The ultra-low power platform is among the three crucial technologies that TSMC Chairman Morris Chang preaches as crucial to the development of IoT to be  the “next big thing” of the semiconductor industry. The other two are system in package (SiP) and micro electro mechanical system (MEMS). (KL)