GLOBALFOUNDRIES lays out path for sustained technology leadership at 28nm and beyond

GTC 2010, MILPITAS, USA: At the inaugural Global Technology Conference, GLOBALFOUNDRIES revealed the latest details of its progress in technology development for the 28nm technology generation and beyond.

The company announced the addition of a new technology offering based on its 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) technology and revealed for the first time its manufacturing timeline for the 22/20nm node.

“From the very beginning our vision has been to be the technology leader in the foundry industry,” said Gregg Bartlett, senior vice president of technology and research and development at GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

“We ramped to volume production at the 45/40nm generation well ahead of all foundries and we are poised to maintain this leadership at 32/28nm, with plans to extend this to the 22/20nm node. By leveraging our unique heritage of leading-edge manufacturing and foundry best practices, we will enable our customers to achieve the fastest time-to-market for their next-generation designs.”

28nm high performance “Plus”
GLOBALFOUNDRIES introduced a new technology to address the growing market for smart mobile devices and high-performance processors requiring more than 2GHz of processing power.

Scheduled to begin risk production in Q4 2011, the 28nm High Performance Plus (HPP) technology provides a performance boost of as much as 10 percent over the company’s current 28nm High Performance (HP) offering, as well as offering optional ultra-low leakage transistors and SRAMs that extend the application range from high performance into the low power range.

Furthermore, a rich RF CMOS offering also is available, making this technology an ideal platform for the next generation of high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) designs with a broad addressable market ranging from low-power to high-performance devices.

The new 28nm-HPP technology rounds out GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 28nm offerings, which include the 28nm High Performance (HP) technology targeted at high-performance wired applications and the Super Low Power (SLP) technology for power-sensitive mobile and consumer applications.

All 28nm technologies feature GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ innovative Gate First approach to HKMG. The approach is superior to other 28nm HKMG solutions in both scalability and manufacturability, offering a substantially smaller die size and cost, as well as compatibility with proven design elements and process flows from previous technology nodes.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is currently accepting designs for its 28nm technologies. Multiple customer designs have already been silicon-validated, and many more product and IP test chips are being validated at GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

Path to 22/20nm
With risk production set to begin in 2H 2012, GLOBALFOUNDRIES is well on its way to delivering 22/20nm technology to customers for product introduction in 2013. The 20nm technology offerings will come in two varieties: a High Performance (HP) technology designed for wired applications such as servers and media processors, and a 20nm Super Low Power (SLP) technology designed for power-sensitive mobile applications.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES also will have access to a 22nm Super High Performance (SHP) technology designed for devices requiring the utmost in performance. The 22/20nm technologies are planned to be a full node shrink from 32/28nm, and will utilize next-generation HKMG technology and strain engineering to enable the area and die cost scaling the industry has come to expect with each technology generation. Test chip shuttles for customers will begin running in Fab 1 in 2H 2011.