AUSTIN, Texas -- Japan's Toshiba Corp. said that it is ready to roll with its 45-/40-nm logic process, but the company's initial customer for the technology--Sony Corp.--could be late to the party.
Toshiba (Tokyo) has shipped its 65-nm logic process for some time. The company has moved into ''pilot line'' production for its 40-nm, high-performance logic process, said Masakazu Kakumu, corporate vice president and vice president of the System LSI Division at Toshiba Semiconductor Co.
The Toshiba executive hinted that the 40-nm, high-performance process is ready, with a low-power version due in mid-2009. The first customer for the high-performance process is Sony, but is Sony tardy with its design? Sony is supposed to deliver a 45-nm version of its graphics engine for the PlayStation 3 game console to Toshiba. The chip is being manufactured on a foundry basis by Toshiba.
"We are waiting for the graphics engine from Sony,'' he said during a brief interview at the 5th ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness, which is sponsored by Sematech (Albany, N.Y.) He did not elaborate, however.
Toshiba has two main 300-mm logic fabs, which are processing its 65- and 40-nm chips. The fabs are located in Nagasaki and Oita.
Last year, Sony sold and transferred to Toshiba its 300-mm wafer line fabrication facilities installed in Fab 2 of Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corp.'s Nagasaki Technology Center.
Manufacturing will start with 65-nm process, and the joint venture will promote migration to 45-nm process mass production, in cooperation with Toshiba's system LSI manufacturing operation in Oita.
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