Samsung qualifies 28nm LP process technology for high performance mobile apps

DAC 2011, SAN DIEGO, USA: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd announced that its foundry business, Samsung Foundry, has qualified 28nm low-power (LP) process with High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology and is ready for risk production.

Additionally, Samsung Foundry has added a new variant to its advanced process technology roadmap, 28nm LPH HKMG process technology. With more functionality converged into a single system-on-chip (SoC), Samsung’s 28nm LP and LPH process technologies offer designers comprehensive solutions to keep pace with the challenges of exploding bandwidth, advanced integrated functionality and low-power constraints.

By leveraging its deep, sub-micron expertise in advanced process and design, Samsung Foundry has tuned its 28nm LP process technology to deliver a cutting-edge process platform with 35 percent active/standby power reduction at the same frequency or 30 percent performance boost at the same leakage over 45nm LP SoC designs.

Samsung Foundry’s newest process node - 28nm LPH process, has been specifically developed for mobile device applications that can deliver over 2GHz processing performance, offering engineers another option for bringing leading-edge system-on-chip designs. 28nm LPH offers 60 percent of active power reduction at the same frequency or 55 percent of performance boost at the same leakage over 45nm LP SoC designs. 28nm LPH process shuttles are available now.

“We are pleased to offer 28nm LP and LPH process technology with complete design enablement ecosystem to our customers,” said Dr. KH Kim, executive vice president of Samsung’s foundry business. “In doing so, our customers are able to design and manufacture chips that offer the best possible user experience on the next generation of smart devices such as smartphones, tablet PCs and Internet TVs. Samsung Foundry will continue to offer smart and innovative foundry solutions by leveraging Samsung’s proven semiconductor business leadership.”

Together with its 28nm LP and LPH processes, Samsung offers an extensive and comprehensive suite of 28nm LP design enablement solutions from all major ecosystem partners. Samsung EDA solutions include full process design kits (PDKs) and design flows from Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor, and Magma. Samsung also has an expansive licensed portfolio of standard cells, memories, and interface IPs from leading companies including ARM and Synopsys.

Samsung Foundry is currently accepting designs for its 28nm technologies. Multiple customer designs have been silicon-validated, and many more products and IP test chips are being processed at Samsung’s logic fab, the S Line, in Giheung, South Korea.