Lucent, Chartered interconnect

Lucent Technologies and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing have agreed to jointly develop fabrication processes for low-k dielectric copper and aluminum interconnects in next-generation CMOS integrated circuits.

The resulting processes, which will combine Lucent's 0.16-micron and Chartered's 0.18-micron technologies, will then be transferred to Silicon Manufacturing Partners, their joint manufacturing venture in Singapore.

The companies expect to begin prototyping new devices in the fourth quarter of 1999 at the Singapore fab, which can generate 26,000 wafers per month. More information about Lucent and Chartered can be found at http://www.lucent.com and http://www.csminc.com , respectively.