Research center aims to speed the development of 45nm and smaller chip production technologies United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) has opened a new nanotechnology lab in southern Taiwan aimed at developing chip production technologies 45-nanometers in size and smaller.The NT$1 billion (US$30 million) lab will eventually employ over 1,000 research engineers, important for southern Taiwan because of the loss of manufacturing jobs caused by factories moving to lower-cost China.The research center is meant to help speed up the development of chip mass production technologies, ensuring leading edge chips make it to users as fast as possible. It will focus on 45nm and smaller production technologies. The nanometer term describes the size of the smallest feature that can be manufactured on a single chip. There are about three to six atoms in a nanometer, depending on the type of atom, and there are a billion nanometers in a meter. Reducing the size of the features on a chip enables companies to create smaller, more energy efficient, and more powerful chips.The research center was built beside UMC’s most advanced semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Taiwan, a 12-inch (300-millimeter) factory capable of etching chips on 12-inch wafers.Early this year, UMC broke ground on a similar factory in the same area, which will cost an estimated US$5 billion once production lines have been installed. The factory building and clean room of the new factory will be completed by the first quarter of next year. It will use 65nm production technologies when it opens, and it is expected to etch chips on 50,000 wafers per month once it reaches maximum production. Technology Industry