Successful solution to be used for Epson foundry business
TOKYO and GISTEL, BELGIUM – November 7, 2006 – Seiko Epson [1] and Sarnoff Europe [2] today announced that Epson will expand its license agreement for Sarnoff’s TakeCharge® on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection IP portfolio, to enable use by its foundry business customers. Epson will use Sarnoff’s TakeCharge solution to protect its foundry customers’ high voltage CMOS integrated circuit (IC) products from ESD damage.
Epson, a foundry business pioneer since 1982, originally licensed
Sarnoff’s TakeCharge for use with its HV-CMOS IC’s. Epson’s success
with TakeCharge in its own products resulted in a 50 percent reduction
in chip input/output (I/O) area.
“Epson achieved such great results with Sarnoff’s TakeCharge that we
decided to extend its use to our foundry customers,” said Shinya
Kamiyama, General Manager of Epson’s Foundry Business Division. “Thanks to Sarnoff’s technology, we are pleased to provide our foundry
customers with further improved ESD support and this means that we are
able to get our customer’s products to market cheaper and faster—a key
advantage in such a fast moving and highly competitive market.”
Epson’s foundry customers have access to Sarnoff’s TakeCharge
solutions based on their individual needs. Services include Epson
delivering the solutions integrated in standard IO libraries; Sarnoff
delivering the solutions in the form of custom TakeCharge Design Kits
for development of custom made IO libraries and specialty IO cells; or
Sarnoff delivering a “per product solution” design support service.
“We are happy that Epson’s success with TakeCharge has led them to
offer our solutions to their foundry customers,” said Koen Verhaege,
Executive Director of Sarnoff Europe. “We strive to provide the best
solutions around and Epson’s licensing extension tells us we are
meeting and beating the industry standard, reconfirmed also by our most
recent foundry breakthrough experience in advanced 65nm CMOS foundry
business relationships.”
TakeCharge technology is used in more than 200 high-volume
production IC’s by leading IC producers worldwide and includes:
Toshiba, Sony, OKI, NJR, Hynix, Epson, Matsushita, Renesas, Ricoh,
Infineon, Altera, PMC-Sierra, Scintera, and Sharp.
For media information contact:
Lou Ann Wingerter
609-734-2863
lwingerter@sarnoff.com [3]
About Epson
Epson is a global leader in imaging products including printers, 3LCD
projectors and small- and medium-sized LCDs. With an innovative and
creative culture, Epson is dedicated to exceeding the vision and
expectations of customers worldwide with products known for their
superior quality, functionality, compactness and energy efficiency.
Epson is a network of 90,701 employees in 120 companies around the
world, and is proud of its ongoing contributions to the global
environment and to the communities in which it is located. Led by the
Japan-based Seiko Epson Corp., the Group had consolidated sales of
1549.5 billion yen in fiscal 2005.
About Sarnoff Corporation
Sarnoff Corporation [4] produces innovations in electronic, video and vision technologies that
generate successful new products and services for our government and
commercial clients worldwide. Founded in 1942 as RCA Laboratories,
Sarnoff makes continuous breakthroughs in ICs, lasers, imaging and
sensing devices; biomedical diagnostics; digital TV and video for
security, surveillance and entertainment; high-performance networking;
and wireless communications. Sarnoff is a subsidiary of SRI
International.
About Sarnoff Europe
Sarnoff Europe [5] headquartered in Gistel, Belgium, is a subsidiary company of Sarnoff
Corporation. Sarnoff Europe assumes worldwide responsibility for the
development and commercialization of Sarnoff’s TakeCharge® on-chip ESD
protection IP.