Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) has moved its 0.13-micron low-leakage (LL) embedded flash (eFlash) process to volume production, according to the China-based IC foundry. The node expands SMIC's non-volatile memory (NVM) offerings to provide customers a differentiated solution to address performance, power consumption and cost.

　　SMIC's 0.13um LL eFlash technology delivers endurance at up to 300k read-write cycles, three times higher than industry standards, the company claimed. The process is a low-leakage solution designed for extremely low power consumption applications, and is also suitable for higher current density applications due to its copper back end of line (Cu-BEOL), the company said.

　　Coupled with its low-power consumption, high performance, and high reliability, the 0.13um LL eFlash process is available for production for a wide range of low-leakage MCU applications which includes mobile handsets and smart cards, SMIC noted. The process is also targeted at automotive electronics, RF and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

　　"We are encouraged by our customers' rapid acceptance of our differentiated 0.13um LL eFlash offering," said Mike Rekuc, executive VP of SMIC Worldwide Sales and Marketing. "In particular, we are delighted to see existing designs in volume production such as MCUs for touch controller ICs (TCIC)."