Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay, Senior Director & Head of the Medical IoT End Market at GlobalFoundries 

Healthcare is no longer confined to doctor’s offices or hospitals – its boundaries are being pushed to what can be done in the comfort of your own home through technology. In fact, as healthcare and technology become increasingly inseparable, it’s advancing patient care and transforming how we think of it. From continuous glucose monitors (CGM) to AI-enabled ultrasounds, innovations in healthcare are unlocking possibilities once thought impossible. The rise of ultra-portable, data-rich medical devices is changing how we detect, diagnose and manage health conditions. And it’s doing it before a patient ever steps into a clinic. 

What is powering this shift? Semiconductors — more specifically, our essential chips.  

To understand the role GlobalFoundries plays in enabling these medical and health IoT breakthroughs, we spoke with Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, IEEE Fellow and Senior Director & Head of the Medical IoT End Market. In our conversation, Anirban shares what’s driving the shift, where the biggest opportunities lie and why this space is both a technical frontier and a deeply personal mission. 

Tell us about the intersection of semiconductors and healthcare. Where do you see it evolving in the next few years? 

We’re at an inflection point in the medtech industry. The medical segment is broadly divided into pharmacology (drugs) and medtech (devices). Here, I’m talking about the latter where we’ve seen a dramatic shift in the last two to three years toward ultra-portable devices. 

There are a few reasons for this: Healthcare is expensive, it’s time-consuming to access, and the medical stakes only rise as conditions progress. But if we can catch issues earlier (through monitoring, tracking and diagnostics), we can not only improve outcomes but also reduce long-term costs. That’s where point-of-care devices come in. 

Point-of-care means treatment or diagnostics happen at the site of the patient, whether that’s in a clinic or at home. These devices handle everything from monitoring and diagnosis to therapeutics. For example, think about wearable devices like continuous glucose monitors. As a benchmark, last year, 300 million were sold. That’s unheard of in the medical space. 

Semiconductors make this possible. To create a device that’s small, low-power and high-performing, you need advanced semiconductor technology. Miniaturization, power efficiency and onboard processing are only possible with custom chips; that’s where GlobalFoundries comes in. This is now more important than ever as the MedTech industry, who once depended on off-the-shelf chips that could be reused for various applications and fields beyond medical, has switched to using custom chips, known as application specific integrated circuits (ASICS), to meet the performance/power needs of their end products, allowing our customers to create truly differentiated solutions suited to their unique applications. 

Bring us back to the very beginning. How did you get involved in this space, and what drew GF towards it? 

There are two answers. From GF’s side, we started to see that customers were already using our chips in medical applications — sometimes without us even knowing. That was when we realized we had a unique value proposition: Our technologies could enable power-efficient, high-performance and highly reliable devices.  

So, we made a conscious decision to lean in as we saw advancing digital healthcare not just as an opportunity, but as a social responsibility aligned with our mission. 

As for me, I’ve spent most of my career in connectivity, and the industry knows me for that work. But at home, my wife is a microbiologist, and my daughter is entering medicine. Talking to them, I realized I didn’t always understand their world, but I wanted to. It made me think deeply about how semiconductors could power the breakthroughs they’re working toward. That personal connection inspired my pivot into medical IoT. 

What market or patient trends are driving demand for miniaturized, AI-capable medical devices? 

One of the biggest drivers is early detection. Right now, if you go to your doctor and reference data from your smartwatch or health ring, they won’t use it to inform the diagnosis they’ll make. But that’s changing. Even if a device isn’t 100% accurate, it can flag early indicators to prompt faster diagnostics and that can save lives. 

Consumers want to understand how their bodies respond to food, stress or sleep. Devices like CGMs, smartwatches and wearables are increasingly capable of giving those insights. Some are FDA-approved; others aren’t, but they still serve as early warning systems. 

So, that’s where we’re headed: an era where your body is continuously monitored, and you’re empowered with real-time information on your own health. 

So, what benefits are GF’s platforms bringing to medical and health IoT devices? 

Medical device manufacturers are looking for four things: miniaturization, power efficiency, excellent signal-to-noise ratio and extreme reliability. 

Take our 22FDX® platform for example. It offers industry-leading ultra-low power performance, exceptional receiver sensitivity and a low-noise amplifier. Most medical devices today still use essential nodes (130nm, 90nm, 65nm), but we’re also seeing a shift. As requirements evolve, more customers are moving to 22FDX® to meet next-gen performance and form factor needs. 

On top of that, GF has a proven track record of supporting long-lifecycle products — critical to the medical field. Our experience in aerospace and automotive, where support over decades is non-negotiable, makes us an ideal foundry for this market. 

Are there any specific medical applications you’re particularly excited about? 

Two areas stand out: imaging and diagnostic sequencing. 

Traditionally, when we think of imaging, we picture big machines like CT scanners. But we’re evolving. Handheld ultrasound devices that connect to smartphones are already here, and they’re a real game changer — especially in areas with limited access to care. With minimal training, someone can capture an image and get AI-assisted diagnostics. 

The second is diagnostic sequencing – DNA and protein sequencing to be precise. Why send raw data to a massive server farm for processing when you could do it locally with a system-on-chip? Putting a semiconductor chip directly under the sequencer allows real-time analysis and immediate action. Now, that’s revolutionary. 

GF recently announced its advanced packaging center. How does that fit into the picture? 

Miniaturization doesn’t stop at node scaling. Chiplet architectures and advanced packaging, like vertically stacked chips, allow us to reduce form factors even further. We’re already working with customers on stacked chip designs at both the wafer and die level. 

What sets us apart is how we handle power dissipation in these stacked designs. That’s one of the biggest challenges, and we believe we have a more efficient approach than most competitors. That’s a big differentiator in the medical space, where power and heat management are crucial. 

Final thoughts — what’s really important but often forgotten when it comes to the industry?  

One thing people often overlook is the lifecycle support required for medical devices. These aren’t short-term products. You need a foundry that can support a device for a decade or longer. GF has that scale and that mindset. We’ve done it for aerospace; we’ve done it for automotive, and we’re ready to do it for medical. 

That long-term commitment matters. Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about performance or cost; it’s about trust.  

Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, is the Senior Director and Head of the Medical/Healthcare segment within GlobalFoundries. Dr. Bandyopadhyay is also an IEEE Fellow and a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Electron Devices Society and represents GF in different industry consortia and alliances. Prior to his current role, he held leadership responsibilities within GF, IBM Microelectronics and Intel in areas such as RF Design Enablement, Silicon Photonics, signal integrity in RF and Mixed signal SOC’s and RF technology evaluations for wireless connectivity within different end devices.

The world is becoming increasingly connected, driven by the exponential growth of data and the rise of transformative technologies like AI. This connectivity revolution is placing unprecedented demands on RF technologies, from the need for seamless cloud-edge data links to the continued evolution of 5G, 6G and beyond.  

GF’s comprehensive RF portfolio, including our industry-leading RFSOI, SiGe, 22FDX+ and RF GaN platforms, is purpose-built to push the boundaries of what’s possible in connectivity, but we’re not doing it alone. Together with innovative partners like Falcomm, we’re moving the industry forward, providing our customers with cutting-edge solutions to enhance performance, power and integration and create connected technologies with higher signal quality, better efficiency and longer battery life.  

As the RF world prepares to gather in San Francisco for IMS 2025, GF and Falcomm are excited to share the latest milestones from our partnership that is shaping the future of RF technology. 

About Falcomm  

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Falcomm, a member of the GlobalFoundries (GF) GlobalSolutions™ Ecosystem, is an emerging leader in the design and development of high-efficiency RF and millimeter-wave integrated circuits. Founded by Dr. Edgar Garay out of pioneering research at Georgia Tech, the company is scaling rapidly, driven by demand across defense, aerospace, and commercial wireless markets. Falcomm’s team includes some of the industry’s best RFIC designers, with core expertise in RF power amplifier (PA) and front-end module design. 

At the heart of Falcomm’s innovation is its patented Dual-Drive™ power amplifier technology. This process- and frequency-agnostic circuit architecture delivers breakthrough performance in power-added efficiency (PAE), output power, linearity, and bandwidth. The technology has now been successfully implemented across multiple GF platforms including 22FDX®, 130NSX, 45RFSOI, demonstrating impressive results in diverse applications. Most recently, Falcomm is implementing Dual-Drive™ architecture on GF’s 130RF GaN process, with the goal of delivering the world’s most efficient and linear GaN power amplifiers to date.  

Falcomm is proudly U.S.-based, and all products are fully designed and manufactured domestically, including products manufactured by GF through their trusted facilities in New York and Vermont. This ensures not only performance excellence but also supply chain resilience for critical infrastructure and defense applications. 

Now, let’s take a look at some of the exciting technologies that we will be showcasing at IMS this year. 

FCM1401 on GF 130NSX Ku-band PA  

Available for evaluation and licensing to qualified partners 

Falcomm has completed timely validation of its FCM1401 product, a high-efficiency Ku-band power amplifier fabricated using GF’s 130NSX bulk CMOS process. This PA delivers a compelling combination of performance, integration, and cost scalability. Performance highlights include: 

• Frequency: 12.5GHz – 16GHz 

• PAE: 50 % 

• Output Power: 20 dBm 

• Gain: 23 dB 

This product is being used in tactical and commercial Ku-band applications where efficiency, cost and performance are critical. The FCM1401 and FCM1401 evaluation boards are currently available for purchase at Falcomm.com and IP licensing agreements through GF IP Portal.  

FCM2801 & FCM3901 – 28 GHz / 39 GHz Power Amplifiers on GlobalFoundries 45RFSOI for 5G mmWave 

Available for evaluation and licensing to qualified partners 

Falcomm has launched two high-efficiency mmWave power amplifiers: FCM2801 (28 GHz) and FCM3901 (39 GHz), built on GlobalFoundries’ 45RFSOI platform and optimized for 5G New Radio (NR) FR2 applications. These solutions are designed to maximize silicon-area/power efficiency, linearity, thermal performance, and output power, making them ideal for ground-based radios, mobile devices, infrastructure, phased arrays, and broadband front ends. 

The GF 45RFSOI process enables high power density and efficient heat dissipation without large die size or complex thermal strategies, supporting cost-effective and compact system designs. Both products leverage Falcomm’s patented Dual-Drive™ PA architecture to support advanced SWaP-constrained platforms. 

39GHz 5G PA in GF 22FDX+ and enhanced 28GHz high-power PA in GF 45RFSOI for 5G mmWave 

Available for evaluation and licensing in Q4 2025 

Falcomm is expanding its mmWave product line with two advanced 5G power amplifiers: a new 39 GHz PA built on GF 22FDX+ platform and an enhanced high-power 28 GHz PA on GF 45RFSOI. These solutions are engineered for exceptional power efficiency, linearity, and thermal performance—ideal for 5G NR FR2 applications across infrastructure, phased arrays, and compact, power-constrained platforms. 

The 22FDX+ version of the 39 GHz PA delivers outstanding integration potential with digital and mixed-signal blocks, making it an ideal candidate for advanced beamforming ICs and phased array modules. The updated 28 GHz PA on 45RFSOI achieves higher output power and improved thermal handling, while maintaining Falcomm’s signature Dual-Drive™ efficiency and compact footprint. 

Join Us at IMS 2025  

Falcomm will be showcasing its latest technologies alongside GlobalFoundries at IMS 2025. We invite attendees, partners, and customers to visit Falcomm at Booth 4103 and GF at Booth 149 to explore how your products can benefit from Falcomm’s patented Dual-Drive™ power amplifier architecture and GF’s storied RF-leadership and manufacturing excellence. Join us to discover how we’re pushing the boundaries of RF performance with unmatched efficiency, linearity, and integration! 

For more information or to schedule a meeting at IMS, contact us at [email protected]  

Wael Fakhreldin, End-Market Director of Automotive Processing at GlobalFoundries

Software-defined vehicles (SDVs) have taken center stage as part of the automotive industry’s digital revolution. Think of SDVs as smartphones on wheels. And at the center of it all – but not so visible – are microcontroller units (MCUs) — the “digital brains” of today’s cars. These tiny but powerful chips, ranging from the size of a fingernail to a grain of rice, control everything from essential systems like brakes, to ambient lighting.

So, to break it all down, we turned to Wael Fakhreldin, GF’s Director of Automotive Processing, about the trends shaping the next generation of vehicle architectures, the evolving demands on MCUs, and how GlobalFoundries is co-innovating with its automotive customers to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Let’s start big picture — what are some of the biggest automotive challenges you’re seeing that are pushing the need for new architecture?

Consumers want their in-vehicle experience to be as seamless as using the smartphone in their hands, and automakers are on a mission to make driving as safe as possible. But, what does that mean? In traditional vehicle architectures, each new feature would require its own hardware, creating significant complexities and costs for OEMs to integrate multiple different control units. The push for smarter and more connected vehicles demands new architecture, empowering drivers to access new features instantly, without the need for costly hardware upgrades.

Now, these pressures have spurred the acceleration toward SDVs that can rapidly deliver new features to keep pace with consumer expectations and market demand for new functionalities, without requiring physical updates. This approach relies on versatile, scalable high-performance compute platforms, enabling seamless over-the-air updates. They are key to overcoming these challenges.

What do you see as the most promising vehicle architectures today, and how do you think they’ll evolve over the next few years?

SDV zonal architecture is raising the standard for efficiency and performance, and it’s doing so in multiple ways. For instance, it is: 1) consolidating control & processing features based on their physical location in the vehicle, rather than their function and 2) significantly reducing wiring complexity and overall vehicle harness weight. In recent years, cross-domain zonal architectures have gained traction because they align well with the physical layout of modern vehicles. Each zonal controller manages different vehicle domain functions – from body and comfort to chassis control, or gateways – and different zonal controllers are connected via a fast ethernet up to 10Gbps, which acts as the vehicle’s backbone.

Central compute architecture is not expected to be broadly adopted until 2030, but adoption is already underway. This approach introduces a high-performance compute cluster, which orchestrates almost all vehicle functions, routing data from various sensors and components through aggregators to a central processing unit. Semiconductor innovations, such as automotive chiplets, will be critical in advancing these architectures, providing the high-performance capabilities required to support the on-demand software updates that consumers now expect.

There’s lots of talk about updating SDV architectures to drive more efficiency. What demands are zonal architectures placing on microcontroller units (MCUs) to deliver from a computing standpoint?

SDVs are only as smart as the architecture behind them. Simply put, they cannot reach their full potential without Zonal Controller Units. These controllers consolidate vehicle functions by physical cluster, rather than by feature. This shift is putting a big spotlight on MCUs and pushing the boundaries of what MCUs need to deliver — process faster, connect more devices, and support emerging features like AI at the edge.

• More Compute: MCUs are being pushed to handle far more real-time computing. As chipmakers seek out arrays of different of logic cores, which run at higher operating frequencies. They are moving to more advanced nodes and bringing different digital cores’ virtualization concepts allowing MCUs to manage multiple tasks flexibly and efficiently.
• Input/Output Overload: Modern vehicles have over 90 smart sensors, 800 sensors and loads, requiring zonal MCUs to have denser digital and analog I/O offerings to handle this level of data processing.
• Memory That Can Keep Up: Embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) has to get both bigger and faster. Bigger up to 32MB and more, and faster to support the fast-switching digital cores without adding any latencies or risking bottlenecks.
• Faster Communication: The volume of data in cars continues to surge, and MCUs need to move that data — fast. Technologies like high-speed Ethernet and Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) interfaces are becoming standard to guarantee reliable communication between zones and between zones and complex vehicle sensors.

GF’s advanced chip technologies like 12LP+ MRAM and 22FDX MRAM are helping chipmakers support the complex processing of today’s cars with fast, power-efficient vehicle controllers.

As zonal compute rises, the analog tasks shift to the vehicle’s edges. Now, auto chipmakers are bundling these functions – motor controllers, audio amps, even communication interfaces into single MCUs on GF’s 130BCD or 55BCD technology platforms.

Speaking of the edge, AI acceleration in vehicles is skyrocketing. How is AI at the edge reshaping the requirements of automotive MCUs in SDVs?

AI at the edge is powering many newer features – battery lifetime extension, in-cabin sensing, voice recognition, intelligent motor control. This approach reduces complexity, costs and power consumption, but it also enhances user privacy by processing information locally, rather than on the cloud. In instances like these where AI acceleration is not happening in central computers or ZCUs, end nodes require embedded AI acceleration to execute these functionalities.

With this evolution, some MCUs are adapting by offering specialized IPs primed for AI acceleration: graphics processing units (GPUs) to run complex mathematical models, language processing units (LPUs) for language and communication models, and digital signal processing (DSPs) to transform real-time signals. For more intensive workloads, MCUs are also integrating faster, more reliable interfaces to connect with external memory, ensuring they can process high volume data required for advanced AI applications.

Safety, security and functionality are non-negotiable. How are MCUs evolving to ensure that SDVs are meeting the highest standards when it comes to these areas?

Functional safety is at the core of automotive design, but the transition to SDVs adds a layer of complexity. Modern MCUs play a vital role in maintaining freedom from interference by isolating safety critical systems from non-safety critical functions. This ensures that safety critical systems, like steering systems, brakes, and airbags, have uninterrupted access to computing resources needed without delays. MCUs can also support advanced error detection triggering fail-safe or fail-operational mechanisms with the right corrective actions to keep passengers safe.

A safe driving experience also requires cybersecurity. MCUs are responsible for securing over-the-air (OTA) updates, verifying new software images come from trusted sources, and protecting the communication happening between nodes. As more critical safety functions become software-driven, the possibilities of vehicle theft schemes, cyber breaches and unauthorized communications rise.

What’s happening behind the scenes with MCUs to enable fast connectivity and low power consumption?

Connectivity is the backbone of SDVs, and MCUs are at the root of connecting everything from zonal controllers to ADAS features and the in-cabin experience. The direction toward simplified network architectures, like IP-to-the-Edge, reduces wire complexity and eliminates the need for multiple gateways, sending data directly from sensors to MCUs with low latency. To support this, MCUs are adopting technologies like Ethernet, which can transfer data at speeds up to 10 Gbps, and 10BaseT1s with multi-drop technology delivering advantages in reducing system costs  and system power consumption.

And who doesn’t want lower power consumption and more range on electric vehicles? MCUs are engines powering this future of power-efficient vehicles. Advanced platforms like our 22FDX+ offer minimal power leakage, leading the charge forward to a future of higher performance, lower power vehicles.

Finally, how is GlobalFoundries enabling the next generation of automotive MCUs to support the shift to software-defined vehicles?

GF offers scalability with automotive-qualified platforms to serve diverse SDV needs ranging from compute-heavy analog-heavy or analog-light zonal MCUs to compute-light analog-heavy last mile MCUs. Each GF platform offers a broad portfolio of automotive qualified IPs relevant to its performance class and supported applications.

Resilience is a key part of the equation for success, especially given the long and complex path that comes with qualifying MCU alternatives. That’s why we’ve built a global team and manufacturing footprint, ensuring our customers have reliable access to cutting-edge MCU technologies. This approach empowers us to support the world’s leading automotive manufacturers as they embrace the next chapter of software-defined vehicle architecture.

Wael Fakhreldin is a director of automotive processing at GlobalFoundries. He focuses on automotive microcontrollers, microprocessors, AI accelerators and chiplets enabling next generation vehicle electronic architectures.

By Alex Margomenos 
Director, RF Product Management at GlobalFoundries 

Providing broadband and cellular connectivity from space has become feasible due to advancements in rocket engineering, satellite technology, and RF semiconductors. Through these advancements and innovations, we are now able to build sufficient satellite constellations and offer affordable ground terminals to support seamless global communications networks with reliable connectivity.  

When designing a SATCOM ground terminal, the goal is to receive the signal from space at a quality that allows the demodulation of the received data. This specification is quantified by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which is influenced by the power and bandwidth of the transmitted signal from the satellite, the altitude of its orbit, and the receiver gain over noise temperature (G/T). Among these factors, the G/T ratio is the only parameter that can be controlled by the ground terminal designer. 

In this context, the gain (G) in the numerator is determined by the area of the phased array, which correlates to the number of phased array elements. The noise temperature (T) in the denominator is determined by the noise figure (NF) of the low noise amplifiers (LNA). By decreasing the NF of the LNA, a designer can reduce the gain of the phased array while maintaining the same SNR (keeping G/T constant). Consequently, lowering the NF directly decreases the required number of phased array elements. Each 0.1 dB improvement in NF results in a 5% reduction in the number of phased array elements. Fewer antenna elements require fewer chips, emphasizing the significant impact of selecting the appropriate technology with the suitable NF on the overall cost of a ground terminal. 

GlobalFoundries provides three, US-manufactured RF process technologies for SATCOM front-ends and beamformers, ranked by digital density: 45RFSOI, 45RFE, and 130NSX. 

45RFSOI is a partially depleted RF SOI technology developed for mmWave phased arrays with 40nm logic. The platform offers matched, high performance nFET/pFET regular Vt (RVT) devices (ft/fmax of 290/330GHz and 245/300GHz respectively) and an advanced nFET (ADNFET) with ft/fmax of 230/400GHz and a 20% increase in maximum voltage compared to RVT devices [Jain 2021]. It comes with a full suite of passive devices (capacitors, resistors, diodes, ESD, eFuse) as well as SRAM. Finally, it provides three back end of the line metal stacks and supports dual thick Cu and thick Al for very high Q inductors.   

During the last decade, our customers, university partners, and internal reference designers have published over 300 papers on 45RFSOI circuits. Some recent examples include Ka-, Q- and D- band beamformers [Baek 2025, Ren 2024, Ahmed 2024, Khalil 2021], 1.3dB NF Ku-band LNA [Kanar 2023], 27dBm/44% PAE Ku-band PA [Alluri 2024], 19dBm/48% PAE Ka-band PA [Syed 2020], 20dBm/38% PAE Doherty Ka-band PA [Ibrahim 2025], and a high linearity Ku-band mixer [Hassan 2025].  

45RFE is a partially depleted RF SOI on a high resistivity substrate, offering two gate dielectrics for optimal RF performance, high voltage support, and low leakage. It includes three types of nFETs: RVT, ADNFET, and DGADNFET, with increasing voltage handling capabilities. The platform supports passive devices such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, ESD, and eFuse. An 8-metal layer stack with 2 thick copper layers enables high Q-passives. GF announced this technology in 2024 [Jain 2024], highlighting 1.3dB LNA and 21dBm/44% PAE PA at Ka band.   

130NSX is a bulk CMOS technology on high resistivity substrate. It offers thin oxide devices for LNA applications that have demonstrated excellent performance at Ku/Ka frequency bands. It includes thick oxide digital logic, passives (capacitors, resistors, ESD, eFuse) and different back end of the line metal stacks with thick copper and aluminum that enable high Q inductors. GF’s reference design team has published a series of circuit examples showcasing the excellent performance of 130NSX for SATCOM applications. These include a 0.95dB NF LNA at Ku band [Das 2024], a 1.2dB NF LNA at Ka band [Kakara 2024], and a 16dBm / 50% PAE PA at Ku band [Bantupalli 2024]. 

If you would like to learn more about GF’s differentiated RF and ultra-low power CMOS portfolio for SATCOM applications, we invite you to visit our booth (#149) at the upcoming 2025 International Microwave Symposium (IMS), happening June 17-19 in San Francisco, CA. We look forward to connecting with you and discussing how GF can support your next-gen innovations. 

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Alex Margomenos oversees the product management of the RF Product Line at GlobalFoundries. The RF Product Line encompasses RFSOI, RF GaN, and SiGe technologies, which support cellular RF front-ends, satellite communications, aerospace and defense, and cellular infrastructure. He has been with GlobalFoundries for four years. Previously, he held managerial and individual contributor positions at Apple, Intel, Infineon, and HRL Laboratories.