Hong Kong, Hsinchu, Taiwan, April 7, 2015 – Altera (NASDAQ: ALTR) and TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) announced that Altera’s MAX® 10 FPGA product provides innovative “UBM-free (under-bump metallization-free)” WLCSP (wafer-level chip scale package) technology that achieves enhanced quality, reliability, and density.

This packaging technology achieves an extremely thin package height of 0.5 mm or less (including solder balls), making it ideally suited for applications where space is critical, such as sensor applications, miniaturized industrial equipment, and portable electronic devices. Furthermore, it improves board-level reliability by more than 200 percent compared to standard WLCSP and enables large die sizes and a high number of package I/Os for applications such as wireless LAN (WLAN) or power management ICs (PMIC). It also enhances copper wiring performance and inductor performance.

Bill Mazotti, Vice President of Worldwide Management and Engineering at Altera, said, “Altera and TSMC have collaborated to release a highly advanced, high-density packaging solution for use in MAX 10 devices. “By using this innovative technology to improve integration, quality, and reliability, customers can now utilize the MAX 10 FPGA product more universally and effectively,” he said.

Altera's MAX 10 FPGA products represent a major innovation in non-volatile integration by delivering enhanced processing performance as single-chip, small-form-factor programmable logic devices. Inheriting the single-chip tradition of the previous generation MAX device family, they provide densities ranging from 2K to 50K logic elements (LEs) using single or dual-core voltage power supplies. The MAX 10 FPGA devices utilize TSMC's 55nm embedded NOR flash technology and enable "instant-on" functionality.

Altera is currently supplying samples of the MAX 10 FPGA product featuring the new WLCSP packaging. 81-pin and 36-pin WLCSP packages are available. https://www.altera.com/products/fpga/max-series/max-10/features.html#product-table provides an overview of the V81 and V36. http://wl.altera.com/support/devices/packaging/specifications/pkg-pin/dev-package-listing.jsp?device=MAX_10 provides more detailed technical specifications for the V81.

David Keller, Executive Vice President of TSMC North America, said, “Decades of technological collaboration with Altera have led to remarkable achievements such as this innovative ‘UBM-free’ packaging technology. It is a shared goal of both companies to continuously improve in every aspect, from design to manufacturing and packaging, and we will continue to work closely with Altera.”