Munich, Germany/San Jose, Calif. – November 28, 2005 – Infineon Technologies
AG (IFX: FSE, NYSE) today announced availability of an advanced hard disk drive
read channel core, the first integrated circuit (IC) implemented in the company's
90 nanometer (nm) process technology. Developed in cooperation with Hitachi
Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST), the read channel core is a milestone
on the path to developing high-integration controller chips for next generation
hard disk drives.
“With its first 90nm read channel product Infineon is well
on track to deliver the next generation of ICs for the growing HDD market,” stated
Peter Bauer, member of the management board and head of Infineon's Automotive,
Industrial and Multimarket business group.
“Our commitment to the market and
long presence is based on a broad IP portfolio which covers allmost all interfaces,
low power and state-of-the-art SOC design methodology, as well as technologies
now becoming very important to the HDD industry such as Non-volatile memories
and Security Chip Card solutions.”
“Migration to 90nm of the Infineon read channel
core enables the HDD industry to meet next generation product requirements,
including higher data rates, reduced power consumption and smaller die-size
leading to advanced SOC solutions at competitive cost. The first tested read
channel core silicon has demonstrated that the PLL is able to reach up to 3.6GHz
speed and that the Analog Front-End signal path allows for datarates up to 2.7Gb/s.
This is an increase of approx. 50% compared to advanced Read Channels in 130nm
technologies,” said Sandro Cerato, General Manager and Vice President at Infineon
ADS - ASIC and Design Solutions.
The Hard Disk Drive market is expected
to grow by almost 30 percent from US Dollar 3.3bn
in 2005 to US Dollar 4.5bn in 2009 according to a
research by Gartner Dataquest in August 2005 mainly
driven by mobile and desktop applications. “
The development of this read channel
technology further demonstrates Hitachi's and Infineon's
innovative strengths and engineering expertise,” said Steven Smith, Senior Director & General Manager of Rochester
MN, Hitachi GST. “Infineon has demonstrated leadership in silicon development
and integration and we are very pleased with the performance of our first 90nm
read channel implementation.”
The new read channel technology generation
supports advanced features such as perpendicular
recording and leverages on 2 nd generation Reverse
Concatenation coding to deliver state-of-the-art
signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) performance for significantly
improved storage densities.
Infineon's 90nm read
channel technology leverages on a common architecture
and is applicable to all HDD segments (Enterprise,
Desktop, Mobile and Ultra-Low-Power). The requirements
of the different HDD platforms are achieved by customizing the designs
to the specific target parameters of each market
segment.
A second implementation, currently
in development for battery operated applications,
targets an exceptionally low power dissipation. It
will also provide superior stand-by power and leakage
current performance thanks to Infineon's 90nm process
technology that is designed to support handheld applications
such as cellular phones.
The new read-write channel
has been implemented in Infineon's 90nm CMOS
technology which provides the capabilities of combining
high performance, low power and analog devices in
the same silicon for various applications. Infineon's
technology and design system allows for product
specific and cost effective optimizations for mixed
signal and advanced digital signal processing in
a single chip ranging from performance intensive
enterprise-class server applications to power sensitive
mobile consumer electronic applications. Key features
of the technology are the ability to integrate
multiple threshold voltages and multiple gate oxide
devices with minimum physical gate dimensions down
to 70nm using advanced power saving concepts like
active wells, clock-gating and micro-switches with
6 to 9 layers of Copper metallization in a single
chip.
The new HDD controller from the Infineon
ASIC and Design Solutions Group can be manufactured
worldwide in multiple fabs, providing customers with
supply-chain flexibility and opportunity to expand
which is a very important value proposition in the
hard drive industry.Fabs currently offering Infineon's
90nm technology include Infineon's Dresden fab
in Germany and UMC in Taiwan.
About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Hitachi
GST was founded in 2003 as a result of the strategic combination
of the storage technology businesses of Hitachi
and IBM. Hitachi GST offers customers worldwide
the most comprehensive range of storage products
for desktop computers, high performance servers
and mobile devices. The company regularly
delivers technology advancements that boost the feature
set and performance characteristics of its
hard drives.
About Infineon
Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor
and system solutions for automotive, industrial and
multimarket sectors, for applications in communication,
as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates through
its subsidiaries in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from
Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In fiscal year 2005 (ending September), the
company achieved sales of Euro 6.76 billion with about 36,400 employees
worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information
is available at www.infineon.com .
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