"We are confident that TSMC will provide us with significant benefits in accelerated time-to-volume production and maximum flexibility in addressing the volatile fluctuation of the market demand," said Shinichi Iwamoto, Senior Vice President of Renesas Electronics
Renesas was badly hit by the Japanese earthquake and put into place a review of its manufacturing facilities, most of which were based in Japan.
Iwamoto added: "Based on what we have learned from the Earthquake, we have been accelerating the construction of the 'fab network' as part of the company's business continuity plan. By integrating both companies' world-leading technologies through this collaboration, we will construct a supply structure which secures consistent supply for our customers and also drives the market as a leading mcu supplier."
Renesas and TSMC are making the MONOS process platform available to other semiconductor supplier, including fabless companies and IDMs. Renesas hopes the move will also create an ecosystem based around its embedded flash technology for mcus.
In the MONOS structure, each transistor in the flash cell consists of three layers – oxide, nitride and oxide – on a silicon base, with a metal control gate at the top. Renesas has developed a split gate version for embedded flash in mcus. SG-MONOS is said to offer high reliability, high speed and low power consumption.
"Renesas is one of the leaders in the mcu market and the collaboration will help deliver the performance Renesas needs for new production introduction with the level of quality and reliability its customers have come to expect," said Jason Chen, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at TSMC.
