Faraday Announces Its First Silicon-proven TFT LCD TCON Platform -- FT-300

Faraday’s FT-300, a “Flexible” TFT LCD Timing Controller Platform is designed specifically for the LCD Panel Market

HSINCHU, TAIWAN – March 26, 2004 - Faraday Technology Corporation (TAIEX: 3035), a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC company today announced that its FT-300, a “Flexible” TFT LCD Timing Controller platform by using its proprietary structured ASIC technology has been customer-verified successfully on February this year.

TFT-LCD Timing Controller, “TCON” for short, determines the sequencing and the timing of the image signals and in turn transmits the signals to TFT LCD Driver IC, which enables images being displayed on the TFT LCD panel.

In order to make Timing Controller design changes and upgrades easier, the TCON platform adopts Structured ASIC technology – Faraday’s MPCA (Metal Programmable Cell Array). In comparison with traditional standard cell, which requires a complete overhaul of the mask layers for a new design (0.35µm mask has between 17 and 19 layers) the MPCA requires only 1-5.  The cost savings and the design time reduction make the MPCA especially suitable for TFT LCD Timing Controller where upgrades are frequent.  In mass production stage, it is now possible to prepare stage platforms in advance and then produce various version of TCON according to the market needs, so that production lead-time and inventory risk could be reduced.

The platform adopts UMC’s 0.35µm logic process that integrates LVDS Receiver, RSDS Transmitter, SSCG, and Faraday’s own metal programmable cell array (MPCA) solution. The platform has an operating voltage of 3.3V and operating frequency up to 85MHz.

The FT-300 is a join development project catered to the LCD TV market.  In the near future, Faraday is planning to develop FT-200 (for monitor panel applications) and the FT-100 (for notebook display applications).  Customers can adopt Faraday’s platforms directly or develop their own platform by integrating the required LCD TCON IPs with their own specialties to differentiate their product.

Currently, Faraday provides LCD TCON solution on 0.35µm process, which includes LVDS Receiver, RSDS Transmitter, SSCG, and MPCA.  “Faraday has been developing IP portfolio and ASIC solution for the 0.25µm flexible TCON platform since the first quarter of this year. By utilizing Faraday’s own structured ASIC library in our solution, we hope to meet the increasing demand on high performance and low power LCD panels.” said Mr. C. J. Liang, Assistant VP of Technology of Faraday. “The platform would include popular IPs such as LVDS Receiver, LVDS Transmitter, RSDS Transmitter, SSCG, Mini LVDS Transmitter, MPCA, etc.,” he added.

About Faraday Technology Corporation
Faraday Technology Corporation is a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC vendor. The company's broad IP portfolio includes 32-bit RISC CPUs, DSPs, high speed I/Os. With more than 500 employees and 2003 revenue of $111 million, Faraday is the largest fabless ASIC company in all Asia-Pacific. Headquartered in Taiwan, Faraday has service and support offices around the world, including the U.S., Japan, Europe, and China. For more information, please visit: http://www.faraday-tech.com