WDC and LICENSEE announce W65C02 _{<font size=-2>TM</font>} 0.35u at UMC Group<!-- <FONT SIZE=-1>(by Stan Runyon - EE-TIMES)</FONT>-->

IP News

WDC and LICENSEE announce W65C02_TM 0.35u at UMC Group

MESA, Arizona, March 23, 1999 - The Western Design Center (WDC) and Novatek Microelectronics Corp., (Novatek), Hsin-Chu, Taiwan, announced that Novatek has successfully producted W65C02S_TM silicon on UMC Group's 0.35u process.  This effort resulted in a core size of 0.41 mm² after scaling WDC's original GDSII layers and selectively biasing to match UMC Group's tagreted 0.35u rules.   WDC's original hard core design has now been successfully retargeted and run at 1.2u, 0.8u, 0.6u, 0.5u, and 0.35u by scaling and selective-biasing.  In 1998, Novatek scaled this same core design to UMC Group's 0,5u process.  The voltage range of operation for the 0.35u core is 1.5V to 5.25V with a range of power from 0.3 mw/MHz at 2V and 2.25 mw/MHz at 5V.  These cores have been verified with WDC's industry-standard test benches at WDC's test laboratory on a Sentry 21 operating to 20MHz.

Novatek is a fabless semiconductor company that supplies chips to its customers who serve the PC peripheral and consumer markets.  UMC Group leads the pure-play foundry sector in advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology and has alliances with the industry's leading IP vendors through its Gold IP^TMprogram^.

WDC is the original source and Intellectual Property (IO) owner of the patented W65C02_TM 8-bit and W65C816_TM 16-bit microprocessors.  WDC licenses microprocessor IP to the electronics industry for integration into ASICS.  WDC is promoting selected licensees under the WDC Core Alliance Program (CAP) in support of WDC's created industry-standard W65C02/816_TM microprocessor family library.

For more information, please contact Deborah Lamoree at 602-962-4545, lamoree@wdesignc.com or visit our WEB site at http://www.wdesignc.com, or Tommy Chen at Novatek at tommy_chen@novatek.com.tw, or UMC Group (USA) at 408-733-8881, http://www.umcgroup.com.