HSINCHU, Taiwan — TSMC announced today that the company are collaborating with Renesas Electronics Corporation on 28nm embedded flash (eFlash) process technology for manufacturing microcontrollers (MCUs) targeted at next-generation green and autonomous vehicles. The automotive MCUs employing this new 28nm process technology are slated for sample shipment and mass production in 2017 and 2020, respectively.
Renesas and TSMC have collaborated closely on MCUs with on-chip flash memory since the 90nm technology generation. Four years after working together on 40nm MCU platform and production, the two companies are now extending their collaboration to develop 28nm MCUs that pave the way for making future green and autonomous-driving vehicles more efficient and reliable.
Through this collaboration, Renesas’ highly reliable and fast Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (MONOS) eFlash technology will combine with TSMC’s high-performance, low-power 28nm high-K metal gate process technology to produce the world’s leading automotive MCUs for a broader range of applications such as autonomous vehicle sensor control, coordinated control among electronic control units (ECUs), fuel-efficient engine control for green vehicles, and highly efficient motor inverter control for electric vehicles.
With the 28nm eFlash process technology developed through this collaboration, MCUs can meet the demands of next-generation automotive computing by delivering a maximum of more than four times the program memory capacity and greater than four-fold performance improvement compared to the current 40nm technology.
“The auto industry is currently undergoing a major transformation, with next-generation green vehicles and autonomous-driving vehicles on the horizon,” said Ryuji Omura, Executive Vice President, Renesas Electronics Corporation.
“Collaborating with Renesas demonstrates our commitment to offering competitive technologies to achieve maximum value for customers’ products,” said Dr. BJ Woo, TSMC’s Vice President, Business Development. “By leveraging TSMC’s 28nm high-performance, energy-efficient technology, we believe we can showcase how best we optimize one of our advanced technologies to meet the demands and innovation for the next generation of automotive devices and deliver a highly competitive performance/cost advantage.”
