Seoul, Korea: Mass production of 1Gb DDR2 DRAM using 60nm process technology is underway via Samsung Electronics. The new technology increases production efficiency by 40% over the 80nm process technology, which has been used in DRAM fabrication since early 2006.
Ample market availability of 1Gb DRAM will further push the demand for large density DRAMs, according to Samsung. One reason behind that belief is the new premium Vista operating system imposes a DRAM requirement of at least 1GB.
Samsung’s continuous technology migration below 90nm has relied heavily on its extensive use of 3D transistor technologies to build increasingly smaller chips. One crucial technology involved in the 3D transistor’s development is a recess channel array transistor (RCAT) that actually builds the DRAM cell three-dimensionally. This helps minimise its size while increasing its density.
This new 3D technology doubles the refresh cycle, which is critical for enabling efficient fabrication on a nanometer scale. Samsung has used RCAT for DRAM fabrication from 90nm. It’s expected to enable DRAM fabrication that will drop to 50nm and lower. In addition to the 60nm process technology innovation, use of metal-insulator-metal for its capacitors provides enhanced data storage in sub- 70nm designs.
Furthermore, the use of a recently announced selective epitaxial growth technology provides a broader electron channel. On top of that, it optimises the speed of each chip’s electrons to reduce power consumption and deliver higher performance.