Semiconductor foundry firm UMC has received the Industrial Technology Advancement Award in the category of Outstanding Enterprise Innovation Award from Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The Outstanding Enterprise Innovation Award honors domestic Taiwanese enterprises with outstanding performance in innovation development. In addition, the award encourages enterprises to aggressively enhance their innovation capabilities to help evolve and transform industries and establish industry models. The award criteria evaluate overall developmental performance of enterprises, including the resources, management, and performance of innovation development. The judging panel consists of industry, government, academic and research representatives.
UMC manufactured the foundry industry's first fully functional 28nm SRAM chips in October 2008 and presented a paper on a new hybrid High-K/Metal Gate approach for 28nm at 2009 IEDM. In addition, UMC's dual approach for its 28nm technology addresses different market applications. The foundry uses conventional silicon gate/silicon-oxy-nitride gate oxide technology for its Low Power process, which is ideal for portable applications such as mobile phone ICs, while the HK/MG stack is primarily aimed at speed-intensive products such as graphics, application processor, and high-speed communication ICs.
S.C. Chien, vice president of advanced technology development at UMC, said, "We are honored to receive this Outstanding Enterprise Innovation Award. Innovation has always been one of UMC's key strengths. As semiconductor technologies evolve quickly, in addition to independently developing our foundry processes, UMC will also develop future technologies by cooperating with other leaders such as SEMATECH, advanced equipment suppliers, universities and research institutes around the globe, especially for 22nm and below. Going forward, UMC will continue to innovate and evolve by investing funds, manpower and intellectual property in Taiwan. This corresponds with our strategy of 'Investing in Taiwan as a base in establishing a global presence.'"