Hynix-ST fab venture ramps leading-edge ICs

The Chinese fab venture is ramping up leading-edge memories, including 110- and 90-nm DRAMs as well as 80-nm NAND flash parts. The plan is to devise single- and multi-level-cell NAND flash devices at least down to 55-nm.

The $2 billion joint-venture fab is financed with equity from STMicroelectronics and Hynix on a one-third and two-thirds basis, respectively.

The companies broke ground on the fab site in April 2005. Situated on a 550,000-square-meter site area with a clean-room space of 20,000-square-meters, volume production at the 200-mm and 300-mm manufacturing lines began in July 2006 and October 2006, respectively.

The new 300-mm fab will manufacture both NAND flash and DRAMs memories. Currently, production of DRAM is in 90- and 110-nm process technologies at the 200-mm line and 80-nm in the 300-mm line, according to STMicroelectronics (Geneva) and Hynix (Seoul).

By the middle of next year, the lines will start to produce NAND flash in addition to the current production of DRAMs. The 200-mm line is today producing 50,000 wafers per month and the 300-mm line is expected to generate at capacity 18,000 wafers per month.

The split among products and memory densities will depend on market conditions.

In a statement, Mario Licciardello, STMicroelectronics' corporate vice president and general manager of the Memory Product Group, said: "The ramp up of the 300-mm production with 60-nm SLC (single-level cell) and MLC (multi-level cell) NAND technology, rapidly moving to 55-nm and below, will help ST match this growth and meet our customers' demand for high-performance and cost-competitive memory solutions in the mobile and digital consumer markets."