Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) and CED Huada Electronic Design Co. Ltd. (HED) have rolled out a smart card chip using the Chinese foundry’s 55 nm low-leakage embedded flash technology.
According to both companies, the smart card chip has passed testing and meets the application requirements of standard smart cards, but built at the 55 nm level for the first time. SMIC said the chip is smaller in size, lower in power consumption and faster in performance than current smart card chips and is ready for mass production for customers.
SMIC said the smart card chip is compatible with the foundry’s 1.2 V logic library IPs and offers a higher electric current because of the use of copper back-end of line (Cu-BEoL), which the company says creates interconnects with lower electrical resistance. Copper also has low susceptibility to electromigration, a potential cause of chip failure.
Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu, SMIC’s CEO and executive director said in a statement that HED “has been a driver in China’s smart card chip technologies” and due to the rapid growth of China’s smart card market “SMIC will continue to collaborate with HED and help customers expand the market and obtain more shares with advanced technology platforms.”
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