Pure-play foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) and Leadcore Technology Co. Ltd. are teaming up to mass produce a new 28nm system-on-chip (SoC) designed for smartphones and other applications.
The SoC is designed by Leadcore and manufactured using SMIC’s 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process technology and has passed validation and is ready for mass production, SMIC says. SMIC claims it is the first foundry to provide both 28nm PolySiON and 28nm HKMG processes in mainland China. The HKMG process provides improved drive capability and transistor performance as well as reduced gate leakage, SMIC says. As a result, smartphones using the SoC will feature a better performance, higher speed and lower power consumption with a CPU performance of 1.6GHz.
SMIC says it has made good strides in getting domestic Chinese consumers to adopt mainstream smartphones based on SMIC’s 28nm PolySiON process. The company hopes this device will continue the momentum it gained with prior smartphone chips for the Chinese market that are based on its 28nm HKMG process. SMIC says it will introduce an enhanced compact version of its 28nm HKMG process at the end of 2016.