Per the
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors
The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is a set of documents produced by a group of semiconductor industry experts. These experts are representative of the sponsoring organisations which include the Semiconductor Industry A ...
, the 45 nm process is a
MOSFET
The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
technology
node
In general, a node is a localized swelling (a " knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex).
Node may refer to:
In mathematics
* Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph
* Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, line ...
referring to the average half-pitch of a memory cell manufactured at around the 2007–2008 time frame.
Matsushita and
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
started mass-producing 45 nm chips in late 2007, and
AMD started production of 45 nm chips in late 2008, while
IBM,
Infineon,
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
, and
Chartered Semiconductor have already completed a common 45 nm process platform. At the end of 2008,
SMIC was the first China-based semiconductor company to move to 45 nm, having licensed the bulk 45 nm process from IBM. In 2008,
TSMC
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...
moved on to a 40nm process.
Many critical feature sizes are smaller than the wavelength of light used for
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
(i.e., 193 nm and 248 nm). A variety of techniques, such as larger lenses, are used to make sub-wavelength features.
Double patterning has also been introduced to assist in shrinking distances between features, especially if dry lithography is used. It is expected that more layers will be patterned with 193 nm wavelength at the 45 nm node. Moving previously loose layers (such as Metal 4 and Metal 5) from 248 nm to 193 nm wavelength is expected to continue, which will likely further drive costs upward, due to difficulties with 193 nm
photoresist
A photoresist (also known simply as a resist) is a light-sensitive material used in several processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving, to form a patterned coating on a surface. This process is crucial in the electronic industry.
...
s.
High-κ dielectric
Chipmakers have initially voiced concerns about introducing new
high-κ materials into the gate stack, for the purpose of reducing
leakage current density. As of 2007, however, both IBM and Intel have announced that they have high-κ dielectric and metal gate solutions, which Intel considers to be a fundamental change in
transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
design.
NEC
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
has also put high-κ materials into production.
Technology demos
* In 2004,
TSMC
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...
demonstrated a 0.296-square-micrometre 45 nm
SRAM cell. In 2008, TSMC moved on to a 40 nm process.
* In January 2006, Intel demonstrated a 0.346-square-micrometre 45 nm node
SRAM cell.
* In April 2006, AMD demonstrated a 0.370-square-micrometre 45 nm SRAM cell.
* In June 2006,
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...
debuted a 0.24-square-micrometre 45 nm SRAM cell, with the help of
immersion lithography
Immersion lithography is a photolithography resolution enhancement technique for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs) that replaces the usual air gap between the final lens and the wafer surface with a liquid medium that has a refractive inde ...
.
* In November 2006,
UMC announced that it had developed a 45 nm SRAM chip with a cell size of less than 0.25-square-micrometre using immersion lithography and
low-κ dielectrics.
* In 2006, Samsung developed a 40nm process.
The successors to 45 nm technology are
32 nm,
22 nm, and then
14 nm technologies.
Commercial introduction
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.
formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb s ...
started mass production of
system-on-a-chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
(SoC) ICs for digital consumer equipment based on 45nm process technology in June 2007.
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
shipped its first 45nm processor, the
Xeon
Xeon ( ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same ar ...
5400 series, in November 2007.
Many details about Penryn appeared at the April 2007
Intel Developer Forum
The Intel Developer Forum (IDF) was a biannual gathering of technologists to discuss Intel products and products based on Intel products. The first IDF was held in 1997.
To emphasize the importance of China, the Spring 2007 IDF was held in Beijin ...
. Its successor is called
Nehalem. Important advances include the addition of new instructions (including
SSE4
SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a SIMD CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). It was announced on September 27, 2006, at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper; m ...
, also known as Penryn New Instructions) and new fabrication materials (most significantly a
hafnium
Hafnium is a chemical element with the symbol Hf and atomic number 72. A lustrous, silvery gray, tetravalent transition metal, hafnium chemically resembles zirconium and is found in many zirconium minerals. Its existence was predicted by Dmitri M ...
-based dielectric).
AMD released its
Sempron II,
Athlon II,
Turion II and
Phenom II (in generally increasing order of performance), as well as Shanghai
Opteron
Opteron is AMD's x86 former server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture (known generically as x86-64 or AMD64). It was released on April 22, 2003, with the ''Sledg ...
processors using 45nm process technology in late 2008.
The
Xbox 360 S, released in 2010, has a
Xenon
Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...
processor fabricated in a 45 nm process.
The
PlayStation 3 Slim
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...
model introduced the
Cell Broadband Engine in a 45 nm process.
Example: Intel's 45 nm process
At IEDM 2007, more technical details of Intel's 45 nm process were revealed.
Since immersion lithography is not used here, the lithographic patterning is more difficult. Hence, a line-cutting
double patterning method is used explicitly for this 45 nm process. Also, the use of
high-κ dielectric dielectrics is introduced for the first time, to address gate leakage issues. For the
32 nm node,
immersion lithography
Immersion lithography is a photolithography resolution enhancement technique for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs) that replaces the usual air gap between the final lens and the wafer surface with a liquid medium that has a refractive inde ...
will begin to be used by Intel.
* 160 nm gate pitch (73% of 65 nm generation)
* 200 nm isolation pitch (91% of 65 nm generation) indicating a slowing of scaling of
isolation distance between transistors
* Extensive use of dummy copper metal and dummy gates
* 35 nm gate length (same as 65 nm generation)
* 1 nm equivalent oxide thickness, with 0.7 nm transition layer
* Gate-last process using dummy polysilicon and damascene metal gate
* Squaring of gate ends using a second photoresist coating
* 9 layers of carbon-doped oxide and
Cu interconnect
In semiconductor technology, copper interconnects are interconnects made of copper. They are used in silicon integrated circuits (ICs) to reduce propagation delays and power consumption. Since copper is a better conductor than aluminium, ICs u ...
, the last being a thick "redistribution" layer
* Contacts shaped more like rectangles than circles for
local interconnects
* Lead-free packaging
* 1.36 mA/μm nFET drive current
* 1.07 mA/μm pFET drive current, 51% faster than 65 nm generation, with higher hole mobility due to increase from 23% to 30% Ge in embedded SiGe stressors
In a 2008 Chipworks reverse-engineering, it was disclosed that the trench contacts were formed as a "Metal-0" layer in tungsten serving as a local interconnect. Most trench contacts were short lines oriented parallel to the gates covering diffusion, while gate contacts where even shorter lines oriented perpendicular to the gates.
It was recently revealed that both the
Nehalem and
Atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, a ...
microprocessors used
SRAM cells containing eight transistors instead of the conventional six, in order to better accommodate voltage scaling. This resulted in an area penalty of over 30%.
Processors using 45 nm technology
*
Matsushita released the 45 nm
Uniphier in 2007.
*
Wolfdale,
Wolfdale-3M,
Yorkfield,
Yorkfield XE and
Penryn Intel processors sold under the
Core 2
Intel Core 2 is the processor family encompassing a range of Intel's consumer 64-bit x86-64 single-, dual-, and quad-core microprocessors based on the Core microarchitecture. The single- and dual-core models are single-die, whereas the quad-co ...
brand.
*First generation
Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 series processors such as
Clarksfield,
Bloomfield and
Lynnfield.
*
Diamondville,
Pineview are Intel cores with
Hyper-Threading sold under the
Intel Atom
Intel Atom is the brand name for a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Co ...
brand.
*
AMD Thuban (
Phenom II), Callisto, Heka, Propus, Deneb, Zosma (
Phenom II) and Shanghai (
Opteron
Opteron is AMD's x86 former server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture (known generically as x86-64 or AMD64). It was released on April 22, 2003, with the ''Sledg ...
) Quad-Core Processors, Regor (
Athlon II) dual core processor
Caspian (
AMD Turion#Turion II Ultra, Turion II) mobile dual core processors.
*The
Xenon
Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...
processor in the
Xbox 360 S model.
*Sony/Toshiba
Cell Broadband Engine in
PlayStation 3 Slim
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...
model – September 2009.
*
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
S5PC110, as known as ''Hummingbird''.
*
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...
OMAP
The OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) family, developed by Texas Instruments, was a series of image/ video processors. They are proprietary system on chips (SoCs) for portable and mobile multimedia applications. OMAP devices generally ...
3 and 4 series.
*
IBM POWER7 and
z196
*
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...
SPARC64 VIIIfx
The SPARC64 V (''Zeus'') is a SPARC V9 microprocessor designed by Fujitsu. The SPARC64 V was the basis for a series of successive processors designed for servers, and later, supercomputers.
The servers series are the SPARC64 V+, VI, VI+, VII, V ...
series
*The
Wii U
The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4.
...
"
Espresso
Espresso (, ) is a coffee-brewing method of Italian origin, in which a small amount of nearly boiling water (about ) is forced under of pressure through finely-ground coffee beans. Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans a ...
" IBM CPU.
References
External links
Panasonic Begins Mass Production of 45-nm Generation SoCIntel 45 nm process is good to goIntel moving to 45nm sooner than expected?An AMD UpdateSlashdot discussion of ''n'' nm process naming
{{sequence
, prev=
65 nm
The 65 nm process is an advanced lithographic node used in volume CMOS (MOSFET) semiconductor fabrication. Printed linewidths (i.e. transistor gate lengths) can reach as low as 25 nm on a nominally 65 nm process, while the pitch ...
, next=
32 nm
The 32 nm node is the step following the 45 nm process in CMOS (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication. "32-nanometre" refers to the average half-pitch (i.e., half the distance between identical features) of a memory cell at this technology le ...
, list=
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSF ...
manufacturing processes
*00045
Taiwanese inventions