As the aerospace and defense community gathers at the GOMACTech Conference next week, industry leaders will focus on non-negotiables in the industry including assured access; trusted supply for uncompromised integrity and confidentiality; and modernization activities to innovate national defense systems. However, none of that progress is sustainable without manufacturing that is secure, scalable and built for long program lifecycles. 

At GlobalFoundries, we’re committed to meeting these needs through domestic semiconductor manufacturing across our Trusted accredited facilities in Malta, New York and Burlington, Vermont. As a long-standing supplier to the U.S. A&D ecosystem, our onshore footprint plays an essential role in strengthening resilient semiconductor capabilities, leveraging scale for commercial and industrial markets, and specializing for the aerospace and defense market. 

That’s why we’ve been accelerating the transfer, ramp and launch of key process technologies in the U.S. to deliver enhanced security and strengthen domestic supply for applications ranging from secure communications and radar to SATCOM, signal processing and power systems. 

FDX™ and FinFET: Efficient compute for secure, connected defense systems 

In GF’s Malta fab in New York, FDX production is ramping up after first being announced in our collaboration with NXP. This platform brings fully-depleted SOI benefits to systems that must deliver strong performance within tight thermal and power budgets.  

For defense modernization, our FDX technology supports secure communications and networking by enabling power-efficient compute and control closer to the edge, advances edge autonomy through low-latency processing for sensor fusion and real-time decision-making and enables signal-chain integration by bringing mixed workloads together alongside RF-adjacent subsystems. From SATCOM front-end modules to smart sensors, FDX is building the next generation of connected and secure solutions critical to the A&D industry. 

Another important high-performance, energy-efficient compute platform manufactured in New York is our FinFET technology. As the industry’s most complete 1X FinFET platform, this technology offers a winning combination of processing performance, secure connectivity, power efficiency, reliability and radiation hardness in a customizable, compact design backed by over a decade of manufacturing expertise. Customers like BAE Systems utilize GF’s technology for advanced avionics and telecommunications applications that can withstand the harsh environment of space. 

Feature-rich, energy-efficiency at scale 

Defense systems are increasingly distributed across sensors, radios, trackers and microcontrollers operating at the edges – often in environments where battery life, temperature and reliability define what’s possible. GF’s ultra-low power 40nm platform is designed for exactly these kinds of needs with ultra-low standby leakage, high endurance and integrated analog features. 

First announced last October, GF is bringing our 40nm ultra-low power technology to New York – a critical step forward for A&D customers planning next-generation low-power connectivity and control solutions back by resilient U.S. manufacturing. 

12S0 is another critical technology manufactured through our New York site that A&D customers like BAE Systems trust and have flight-proven for radiation-hardened by design solutions for sensitive space applications. A highly-customizable platform with power efficiency and area benefits and supported by a robust design ecosystem partner, 12S0 provides the flexibility and reliability needed for efficient and scalable electronic systems. 

45RFSOI & 45RFE: RF performance for SATCOM front-ends and beamformers 

Modern defense communications rely on spectrum agility, beam steering and high-efficiency RF front ends, particularly as SATCOM architectures evolve and phased arrays proliferate across air, land, sea and space. That’s why GF produces 45RFSOI and 45RFE in Malta, New York to support RF front-end and beamforming requirements. 

45RFSOI is designed for very high-frequency wireless systems, including advanced radar and 5G/6G mmWave applications, while 45RFE enables handset and battery-operated devices with lower leakage and an enhanced PA device. These platforms help A&D customers integrate more RF functionality in compact form factors without compromising performance. 

CBIC: GF’s highest-performing SiGe to date 

GF’s CBIC complimentary Bi-CMOS silicon germanium platform is the highest performing SiGe platform to date, targeting high-performance, high-speed communications. With full production ramp in Vermont slated for this year, the CBIC platform will expand trusted domestic access for applications where RF performance and consistency are critical, including SATCOM and advanced radar applications. 

In practice, that performance translates into tangible system benefits. For example, in low-noise amplifiers the technology design allows for ultra-low noise figure at reduced current consumption. In advanced radar systems, CBIC technology enables high-resolution sensing and distance ranging in a reduced form factor, supporting more capable sensing architectures where space, weight and power are tightly constrained. 

Power GaN: Advancing U.S.-manufactured power for next-gen platforms  

Power is a strategic differentiator in defense, impacting endurance, payload capacity, thermal design and system reliability. As gallium nitride (GaN) becomes a key enabler for higher energy efficiency, greater power density and compactness in power systems, GF has expanded its power roadmap by entering into a technology licensing agreement with TSMC for 650V and 80V GaN. 

By pairing proven GaN technology with GF’s focus on robust manufacturing, we’re advancing power solutions designed for harsh operating environments and addressing critical gaps for mission-critical platforms that can’t afford performance tradeoffs. 

Why GF’s technology leadership is central to trusted A&D manufacturing 

Trusted manufacturing is strongest when it’s backed by a thriving ecosystem that brings together innovative process technologies, committed customers and long-term partnerships that reinforce scale and longevity. This combination validates that U.S.-based production can deliver leading capability while also meeting the security and assurance expectations that aerospace and defense programs require. 

As demand for trusted U.S. manufacturing accelerates, GF remains aligned with national security priorities by strengthening domestic semiconductor resilience and long-term defense readiness, today and into the future.

Ed Kaste, SVP of Ultra-Low Power CMOS Business, GlobalFoundries 

Today, Physical AI is already taking shape in the real world—appearing in everything from self‑driving vehicles navigating cities from San Francisco to Shenzhen, to autonomous robots operating in industrial warehouses and drones delivering packages. But the future of Physical AI will extend even further, spanning everything from humanoid robots to autonomous imaging systems in healthcare and a wide range of other real‑world applications. This next phase of AI is bringing AI beyond data centers and directly into the physical world in the form of machines that interact with their environments in real time. 

However, delivering these capabilities at scale introduces a new set of constraints and opportunities for semiconductor technology. Multi-modal sensing, distributed intelligence, actuation, and power efficiency become as critical as performance itself. Purpose-built semiconductor platforms are the foundation that will enable Physical AI to move from early adoption to widespread deployment. 

Purpose-built semiconductor platforms for Physical AI  

Physical AI is introducing broader workloads that are reshaping the requirements for semiconductors. The requirements of Physical AI are creating a massive opportunity for GF to deliver reliable, energy-efficient, highly integrated platforms that can adapt over time. 

Here’s how our platforms are enabling this next wave of Physical AI: 

• GF’s industry-leading FDX platform is ideally suited for applications in Physical AI that are optimized for long battery life in small form factors, thanks to its ultra-low power and low leakage capabilities, superior RF performance, integrated power management and highly reliable operation up to 150 degrees Celsius. 

• GF’s differentiated FinFET platform provides increased performance at the right power profile, fully optimized for integrated solutions, enabling efficient sensing, real-time processing, and seamless communication in real-world environments. 

• Memory solutions including MRAM and RRAM offer embedded non-volatile memory options with low power consumption and the fastest access times in the market, allowing customers to build differentiated systems from scratch with pre-validated memory IP. This is critical to future-proof Physical AI designs as traditional memory scaling faces both physical and economic limits. 

• Silicon photonics and RF innovation are driving high-speed connectivity by increasing speed and bandwidth of interconnects within and outside of the application, to communicate reliably across billions of devices at the lowest possible power. 

• Advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration further enable Physical AI by bringing together diverse technologies—compute, memory, RF and power—into compact, efficient systems optimized for distributed deployment. 

The real-time operating model behind Physical AI 

As AI undergoes this fundamental shift to be present in the real world, applications in Physical AI must respond in real time to the environment around it. In our last blog, our Chief Business Officer, Mike Hogan, introduced a simple but powerful framework that defines how Physical AI functions: Sense – Think – Act – Communicate. 

• Sense: Capture data from the physical environment using multimodal sensors such as audio, haptics, optical, radar, and environmental sensors. 

• Think: Process and interpret that data locally to make real-time decisions, in deterministic, safe, and secure way. 

• Act: Execute precise, timely actions through motors or actuators with precision feedback loops. 

• Communicate: Exchange data reliably and securely across distributed systems, from edge to cloud and across devices. 

However, any weakness— whether in latency, power efficiency, security or reliability—can degrade overall system performance. That’s why looking ahead, Physical AI systems will become more customized and adaptive, to optimize not just for compute but for real-world operations over long lifecycles. 

Overcoming power and latency constraints of Physical AI 

Power and latency are fundamental system-level constraints that shape what is possible in Physical AI. These applications operate continuously in confined thermal environments, often times without direct access to abundant energy, while simultaneously requiring real-time responsiveness. As semiconductor content increases, inefficient power consumption and excessive latency can limit performance, reduce reliability and shorten operational life. 

Optimizing for power efficiency and ultra-low latency enables Physical AI systems to do more with less under power, thermal and computing constraints. This makes innovating semiconductor platforms essential to scaling Physical AI beyond pilots, and eventually into mission-critical environments. 

Enabling software-defined, distributed intelligence 

As Physical AI systems evolve, architectures are shifting away from centralized compute toward distributed intelligence. Rather than sending all data to the cloud or a single processor, intelligence is being placed at the interface with the real world, so that they are closer to where data is generated and actions are taken. 

Software-defined architectures play a key role in this transition. By decoupling hardware from software, developers can continuously upgrade features and have the flexibility to support evolving AI models without having to redesign the actual hardware. This is especially critical in long-lived systems such as vehicles, industrial equipment and robotics platforms. 

Physical AI today: Software defined vehicles 

One of the most visible examples of Physical AI today is the software-defined vehicle (SDV). Today’s modern vehicles integrate hundreds of chips to support advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), infotainment, connectivity and battery management. However, as autonomy, electrification and connectivity accelerate, semiconductor content per vehicle continues to rise. In just the last five years alone, the average semiconductor content per vehicle has risen from $700 to $1,000 and S&P Global Mobility estimates this number to continue growing to approximately $1,400 through the end of the decade. 

These systems rely on high-performance sensors, real-time processing and precise actuation to improve automotive safety and user experience—all while operating under strict power and thermal constraints. 

Physical AI tomorrow: Humanoid robots 

The same principles extend into emerging humanoid systems, which need even higher degrees of flexibility to support evolving AI models, sensor fusion algorithms and autonomy stacks. That’s because humanoid robots require multimodal sensing to perceive their environments, distributed intelligence to process data with ultra-low latency and precise motor control to execute fluid, human-like motion in real-time with dozens of degrees of freedom.  

It’s no surprise that a high-end industrial humanoid has semiconductor content that exceeds SDVs by up to four times. These growing silicon footprints make one thing clear: Scaling Physical AI will depend on platforms that can deliver real-time performance within tight power, thermal and reliability limits. 

Building the foundation for the Physical AI future 

As the Physical AI wave pushes intelligence from the cloud into the physical world, success is no longer defined by raw compute alone, but by the ability to deliver reliable, energy-efficient, and adaptable systems at scale. At GF, we’re continuously looking for opportunities to enhance our technology platform for this future designed for sensing, real-time decision-making, actuation and communication. 

Following our recent acquisition of MIPS, we’ve layered our platforms with MIPS’ suite to better target the growing Physical AI opportunity. In the next installment of this blog, we’ll chat with MIPS CEO, Sameer Wasson, on how we’ve combined MIPS’ architecture, IP & design with GF’s optimized process technologies to advance compute workloads and deliver the deterministic real-time performance that Physical AI requires.