Advanced 8SW 300mm SOI technology enables cost-effective, high-performance RF front-end modules for 4G LTE mobile and sub-6GHz 5G applications

Santa Clara, Calif., Sept. 20, 2017 — GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced the availability of the industry’s first RF SOI foundry solution manufactured on 300mm wafers. The company’s most advanced RF SOI technology, 8SW SOI, delivers significant performance, integration and area advantages in front-end modules (FEMs) for 4G LTE and sub-6 GHz 5G mobile and wireless communication applications.

GF’s new 8SW technology offers a low cost, low power, highly flexible solution with superior switching, low-noise amplifiers (LNA) and logic processing capabilities on a 300mm manufacturing line. The technology features up to 70 percent power reduction compared to the previous generation, with higher voltage handling, a best-in-class on-resistance (Ron) and off-capacitance (Coff) for reduced insertion loss with high isolation, and an all-copper interconnect that improves power-handling capacity.

“Skyworks continues to leverage our broad systems expertise to bring highly customized solutions to customers worldwide,” said Joel King, vice president and general manager of Advanced Mobile Solutions for Skyworks. “Our collaboration with GF has provided Skyworks early access to best-in-class switch and LNA technology that will further advance RF front-ends for next-generation mobile devices and evolving IoT applications.”

“We now live in a world of connected intelligence where people expect and demand seamless, reliable data connectivity everywhere,” said Bami Bastani, senior vice president of GF’S RF Business Unit. “But that’s only getting more difficult to achieve, as front-ends increasingly must be able to handle many different frequency bands and many different types of RF signals, along with integrated digital processing and control. As the industry leader in RF, we have developed the new 8SW process specifically to help customers meet their most pressing needs.”

The 300mm RF silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based technology gives designers a cost-effective platform with an optimal combination of performance, integration and power efficiency with greater digital integration ability. GF’s 8SW technology incorporates a specialized substrate optimization that maximizes the quality factor for passive devices, reduces parasitic capacitances for active circuits and minimizes the disparity in phase and voltage swing for devices operating in the sub-GHz frequency range. The technology showcases an optimized LNA with leadership noise figure and high ft/fmax supporting diversity receive and main antenna path LNA applications for today’s 4G operating frequencies and future sub-6GHz 5G FEMs.

The advanced 8SW technology is manufactured on GF’s 300mm production line at Fab 10 in East Fishkill, N.Y. and provides the industry with manufacturing capacity to meet the expected market demand at a lower cost. Process design kits are available now.

For more information on GF’s RF SOI solutions, contact your GLOBALFOUNDRIES sales representative or go to www.globalfoundries.com.

About GF:

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit https://www.globalfoundries.com.

Contacts:

Erica McGill GLOBALFOUNDRIES (518) 795-5240 [email protected]

Jointly developed 14HP process is world’s only technology that leverages both FinFET and SOI

Santa Clara, Calif., Sept. 20, 2017 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES is now delivering in volume its 14nm High Performance (HP) technology that will enable IBM’s next-generation of processors for server systems. The jointly developed 14HP process is specifically designed to deliver the ultra-high performance and data-processing capacity IBM needs to support its cloud, commerce, and enterprise solutions in the era of big data and cognitive computing. IBM announced general availability of the IBM Z on September 13.

14HP is the industry’s only technology to integrate a three-dimensional FinFET transistor architecture on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. Featuring a 17-layer metal stack and more than eight billion transistors per chip, the technology leverages embedded DRAM and other innovative features to deliver higher performance, reduced energy, and better area scaling over previous generations to address a wide range of deep computing workloads.

The 14HP technology powers the processors that run IBM’s latest z14 mainframes. The underlying semiconductor process allows IBM customers to enable massive transaction scale of high-volume workloads, apply machine learning to their most valuable data, and rapidly derive actionable insights to enable intelligent decisions—all while delivering pervasive encryption that provides the ultimate in data protection.

“GlobalFoundries has been a strategic partner in the development of a custom semiconductor technology to enable the aggressive requirements of the processors for our newest server systems,” said Ross Mauri, general manager, IBM Z. “We are excited to bring this 14HP technology to our IBM Z product line.”

“GF and IBM together have an unmatched heritage of developing and manufacturing ultra-high performance SOI chips,” said Mike Cadigan, senior vice president of global sales and business development at GF. “This new generation of 14HP processors is another example of the close collaboration between our engineering teams to meet the demands of a new generation of server systems.”

“The 14HP technology leverages the proven 14nm FinFET high-volume experience of our Fab 8 facility in Saratoga County, N.Y.,” said Tom Caulfield, senior vice president and general manager of GF’s Fab 8. “We are in high volume production with a broad set of customer designs across a range of applications. Our mature and diverse manufacturing capability will enable IBM to bring its latest processor designs to market to service their broad customer base.”

About GF:

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit https://www.globalfoundries.com.

Contacts:

Erica McGill GF (518) 795-4250 [email protected]

 

Technology platforms are uniquely positioned to enable a new era of ‘connected intelligence’ with the transition to 5G

Santa Clara, Calif., September 20, 2017 — GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced its vision and roadmap for a sweeping range of technology platforms designed to help customers transition to next-generation 5G wireless networks. The company offers the industry’s broadest set of technology solutions for a range of 5G applications, from integrated mmWave front end modules (FEMs), transceivers, and baseband chips to high-performance application processors for mobile and networking.

As the world becomes more reliant on digital information, connectivity is expected to drive an enormous amount of growth, with an estimated 8.4 billion connected devices by 2020. 5G will be a key enabler to help networks realize zero-distance connectivity between people and connected machines. The ubiquitous connectivity, incredible throughput, and blistering speeds of 5G will allow applications to take full advantage of the processing power of the cloud.

“At GF, we expect the transition from 4G to 5G to be as disruptive as the transition from voice to data,” said GF CEO Sanjay Jha. “5G is set to transform all industries, and our customers are already gearing up for the future. That is why we continuously push the technology frontier by delivering a rich technology portfolio to meet the requirements for applications that enable connected intelligence for disrupting technologies such as 5G.”

“The vision of 5G is to enable ultra-reliable communications with high data throughput, high user density, and less than 5ms of network latency,” said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. “GF’s broad portfolio and experience positions the company well to address the needs of these networks as they transition to support 5G, from the device all the way to the data center and everything in between.”

GF boasts a number of market-differentiating solutions to meet the performance criteria of 5G applications. The company’s technology roadmap includes offerings in RF-SOI, silicon germanium (SiGe), RF CMOS and advanced CMOS nodes, combined with a broad range of ASIC design services and IP.

GF’s 5G End-to-End Solutions

GF’s 5G solutions are part of the company’s vision to develop and deliver the next wave of technology aimed at enabling connected intelligence for next-generation devices, networks and wired/wireless systems. These application-specific solutions address various customer approaches to 5G by supporting a vast range of capabilities, from ultra-low energy sensors, to ultra-fast devices with long-lasting battery life, to higher levels of integration that support on-chip memory.

• 5G mmWave Front End Modules: GF’s RF-SOI and SiGe solutions (130nm-45nm) deliver an optimal combination of performance, integration and power efficiency for FEMs and integrated power amplifier (PA) applications. GF’s mmWave solutions are designed to operate in between the mmWave and sub-6GHz frequency band, with additional mmWave bands on the company’s roadmap. Customers can now start optimizing their chip designs to develop differentiated solutions for high performance in the RF front end of 5G and mmWave phased array applications.
• 5G mmWave Transceivers and Baseband Processing: GF’s FDX technology (22nm and 12nm) provides the lowest power solution and smallest footprint for 5G transceivers with the integration of RF, ADC, digital baseband and memory on a single chip. Additional features include a unique back-gate bias capability that enables novel architectures and reconfigurable operation. These optimized solutions provide customers a flexible and cost-effective solution to integrate mmWave transceivers and baseband processing in 5G base stations, satellites, radar and other high-performance applications. FDX for mmWave will be available in 2018 through GF and its worldwide partners.
• Advanced Applications Processing: GF’s advanced CMOS FinFET-based process technologies deliver an optimal combination of performance, integration and power efficiency for next-generation smartphone processors, low latency networks and massive MIMO networks. Advanced CMOS solutions are available today from GF.
• Custom Design for 5G Wireless Base Stations: The company’s application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design systems (FX-14 and FX-7) enable optimized 5G solutions (functional modules) by supporting wireless infrastructure protocols on high-speed SerDes, solutions to integrate advanced packaging, monolithic, ADC/DAC and programmable logic. The 5G solution includes 32G BP and 32G SR SerDes to support CPRI, JESD204C standards. It also includes advanced packaging solutions such as 2.5D and MCM, with mmWave capable ADC/DAC data converters and digital front end (DFE). FX-14 is available to customers today while volume production is expected in 2019 for FX-7.

These 5G solutions are available through GF and its worldwide partners. GF is currently working with customers to help support prototyping systems for deployment trials over the next several years.

Unrivaled RF Leadership

With deep roots in both RF-SOI and SiGe processes, GF’s manufacturing legacy and technical expertise in understanding next-generation RF communication architectures has resulted in more than 32 billion RF SOI and 5 billion SiGe chips shipped.

To meet accelerating global demand for 5G solutions, GF is expanding manufacturing capacity in its 300mm fab in East Fishkill as well as adding new capabilities to produce its industry-leading RF-SOI technology in its 200mm Singapore Fab.

Anokiwave

“A major challenge in the 5G mmW market is understanding methods to produce commercially viable phased array antennas. We believe that GF’s RF SOI and SiGe technology leadership enables Anokiwave to develop differentiated millimeter wave solutions to embrace the industrialization of mmW 5G networks.”
Robert Donahue, CEO, Anokiwave

Peregrine

“For nearly three decades, Peregrine’s UltraCMOS® technology platform has been at the forefront of RF-SOI performance, and since 2013, our collaboration with GLOBALFOUNDRIES has further enabled Peregrine to advance RF-SOI technology. With 5G on the horizon, Peregrine is pleased to see GF committing to a 5G roadmap that will support Peregrine’s highly integrated 5G solutions.”
Jim Cable, CTO of Peregrine Semiconductor

Qualcomm

“Global Foundries has had a strong foundry relationship with Qualcomm Technologies for many years across a wide range of process nodes. We are excited to see what 5G can bring to the industry and are looking forward to watching it unfold.”
Cristiano Amon, Executive Vice President, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and President, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies

Skyworks

“As our customers increasingly demand more from their mobile experiences, the need for a strong manufacturing partner is greater than ever. We are pleased to have a partner like GF who is focused on providing the technologies we can leverage to deliver powerful and future-ready RF solutions for 5G markets ranging from mobile connectivity and wireless infrastructure to the Internet of Things.”
Peter Gammel, CTO at Skyworks Solutions, Inc.

About GF:

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit https://www.globalfoundries.com.

Contacts:

Erica McGill GF (518) 795-5240 [email protected]

 

Strategic milestone to help guarantee a secure, high-volume supply of FD-SOI technology

Santa Clara, Calif., and Bernin (Grenoble), France, Sept. 20, 2017 — GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Soitec today announced that they have entered into a five-year agreement to ensure the volume supply of state-of-the-art fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) wafers. This agreement extends the current partnership to provide a solid foundation for both companies to strengthen the FD-SOI supply chain and help ensure high-volume manufacturing.

With the leadership from the two companies, FD-SOI has become the standard technology for cost-effective, low-power devices in high-volume consumer, IoT and automotive applications. The agreement, which is effective immediately, builds on the existing close relationship between the companies and guarantees wafer supply for GF’s 22nm FD-SOI (22FDX®) technology platform.

“GLOBALFOUNDRIES is delivering industry leading ultra-low power, performance-on-demand FD-SOI solutions with cost-sensitive manufacturing options,” said John Docherty, senior vice president of Global Operations at GF. “With Soitec as a long-term strategic partner, this agreement ensures a secure supply to meet the high-volume capacity needs of current and future customers.”

“This agreement represents a long-term commitment from a key strategic customer, further strengthening the FD-SOI supply chain and confirming high-volume adoption,” said Paul Boudre, CEO of Soitec. “Soitec is fully prepared to support GF on its long-term plan to implement and grow 22FDX and 12FDX as FD-SOI standard bearers. This strategic agreement, with very significant wafer volumes, reflects GF’s strong confidence in Soitec as we build the required capacity to serve the growing FD-SOI demand.”

FD-SOI semiconductor technology has been made possible by the mutual commitment of many companies to deliver breakthroughs at both the device and substrate levels. GF and Soitec collaborate very closely to ensure landmark FD-SOI performance advantages at the right cost in developing the foundry’s FDX platforms. The FD-SOI process technologies are based on ultra-thin SOI substrates manufactured with Soitec’s industry-standard Smart Cut™ technology to generate ultra-thin layers with high quality and uniformity.

Offering the best power, performance, area and cost (PPAC) optimization of advanced planar technologies in smart phones, automotive electronics, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, FD-SOI is quickly becoming a new mainstream process technology for battery powered, wireless and connected devices. This agreement will secure effective demand support for the fast growing, global ecosystem which is fueled by the successful market adoption of GF’s 22FDX technology.

About GF:

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit https://www.globalfoundries.com.

About Soitec

Soitec (Euronext, Tech 40 Paris) is a world leader in designing and manufacturing innovative semiconductor materials. The company uses its unique technologies and semiconductor expertise to serve the electronics. With more than 3,000 patents worldwide, Soitec’s strategy is based on disruptive innovation to answer its customers’ needs for high performance, energy efficiency and cost competitiveness. Soitec has manufacturing facilities, R&D centers and offices in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. For more information, please visit www.soitec.com and follow us on Twitter: @Soitec_EN

Contacts:

Erica McGill GF (518) 795-5240 [email protected]

Camille Dufour Soitec +33 (0)6 79 49 51 43 [email protected]

Technology solution delivers ‘connected intelligence’ to next generation high-volume wireless and IoT applications with lower power and significantly reduced cost

Santa Clara, Calif., September 20, 2017 — GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced the availability of its radio frequency/analog PDK (22FDX®-rfa) solution for next-generation wireless and IoT chipsets and its mmWave PDK (22FDX®-mmWave) solution for emerging high-volume applications such as 5G, automotive radar, WiGig, SatComm and wireless backhaul.

Both solutions are based on the company’s 22nm FD-SOI platform, which provides a combination of both high performance RF and mmWave and high density digital to support integrated single chip system solutions. The technology offers the highest fT and fmax at both low and high current densities for applications that require cutting-edge performance and power efficiency such as LTE-A, NB-IOT and 5G cellular transceivers, GPS WiFi and WiGig combo chips, various IoT and automotive radar applications with integrated eMRAM.

“As customers push the boundaries with smart, connected devices, GF is enabling their progress with additions to the FDX family of differentiated products,” said Gregg Bartlett, senior vice president of the CMOS Business Unit at GF. “The rapidly evolving mainstream mobile and IoT markets require innovations in RF and analog. GF’s 22FDX-rfa integrates superior RF and analog capabilities that help to deliver differentiated mobile and IoT products with the best balance of power, performance and cost. For the emerging mmWave markets, GF’s 22FDX-mmWave offers unparalleled mmWave performance to deliver differentiated phased array beam forming and other mmWave system solutions with lowest power consumption and highest levels of performance and integration.”

GF has optimized its 22FDX RF and mmWave offerings to enable integration of high performance antenna switches and power amplifiers for leading-edge connectivity applications such as single system on chip NB IoT and 5G mmWave beamforming phased array systems.

As an alternative to FinFET-based technologies, 22FDX-rfa not only provides the capability to integrate these front end module components, but also offers the benefit of lower thermal noise and comparable self-gain amplification compared to FinFET technologies and self-gains at least 2x compared to bulk CMOS. The intrinsic characteristics of a FD-SOI technology base further reduces the immersion lithography layers by nearly 30 percent compared to FinFET technologies, while achieving better RF performance.

Process design kits for advanced RF and analog, mmWave and embedded non-volatile memory solutions are available now and ready for customer prototype designs. Customers interested in learning more about GF’s 22FDX RF and analog solutions, contact your GLOBALFOUNDRIES sales representative or go to www.globalfoundries.com.

ABOUT GF

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit https://www.globalfoundries.com.

Contacts:

Erica McGill GF (518) 795-5240 [email protected]

 

Advanced embedded non-volatile memory solution delivers ‘connected intelligence’ by expanding SoC capabilities on the 22nm process node

Santa Clara, Calif., September 20, 2017 — GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced the availability of its scalable, embedded magnetoresistive non-volatile memory (eMRAM) technology on the company’s 22nm FD-SOI (22FDX®) platform. As the industry’s most advanced embedded memory solution, GF’s 22FDX eMRAM provides high performance and superior reliability for broad applications in consumer and industrial controllers, data centers, Internet of Things (IoT), and automotive.

As recently demonstrated, GF’s 22FDX eMRAM features the ability to retain data through 260°C solder reflow, while maintaining an industry-leading eMRAM bitcell size that retains data for more than 10 years at 125°C, enabling the technology to be used for general purpose, industrial, and automotive microcontroller units (MCUs). The power efficiency of FDX™ and eMRAM, coupled with the available RF connectivity and mmWave IP, makes 22FDX an ideal platform for battery-powered IoT and autonomous vehicle radar system-on-chips (SoCs).

“Customers are seeking to expand their product capabilities as an increasing number of applications require a high-performance, non-volatile memory solution,” said Dave Eggleston, vice president of Embedded Memory at GF. “We are excited to release 22FDX eMRAM, a high reliability embedded memory technology that provides system designers with the versatility to build greater functionality into their MCUs and SoCs, while enhancing performance and power efficiency.”

The high reliability and superior scalability of GF’s eMRAM makes it a cost effective option at advanced process nodes for multiple markets. Moreover, the versatility of GF’s eMRAM enables fast write performance and high endurance, allowing it to be used for both code storage and working memory. The availability of GF’s 22FDX eMRAM is a result of the company’s multi-year partnership with Everspin Technologies. The partnership has already demonstrated and sampled 1Gb DDR MRAM chips, and productized 256Mb DDR MRAM chips, products which are available exclusively from Everspin.

Process design kits for 22FDX eMRAM and RF solutions are available now. Customer prototyping of 22FDX eMRAM on multi-project wafers (MPWs) is on track for the first quarter of 2018, with risk production planned by the end of 2018. Custom eMRAM design services are available today from GF and our design partners, including eMRAM macros ranging from 2Mb to 32Mb, featuring easy design-in eFlash and SRAM interface options.

Customers interested in learning more about GF’s 22FDX eMRAM solution, contact your GLOBALFOUNDRIES sales representative or go to www.globalfoundries.com.

ABOUT GF

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit https://www.globalfoundries.com.

Contacts:

Erica McGill GF (518) 305-5978 [email protected]

New 12LP technology offers density and performance improvement over current generation

Platform features enhancements for next-gen automotive electronics and RF/analog applications

Santa Clara, Calif., Sept. 20, 2017 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced plans to introduce a new 12nm Leading-Performance (12LP) FinFET semiconductor manufacturing process. The technology is expected to deliver better density and a performance boost over GF’s current-generation 14nm FinFET offering, satisfying the processing needs of the most demanding compute-intensive applications from artificial intelligence and virtual reality to high-end smartphones and networking infrastructure.

The new 12LP technology provides as much as a 15 percent improvement in circuit density and more than a 10 percent improvement in performance over 16/14nm FinFET solutions on the market today. This positions 12LP to be fully competitive with other 12nm FinFET foundry offerings. The technology leverages GF’s expertise at Fab 8 in Saratoga County, N.Y., where its 14nm FinFET platform has been in high-volume production since early 2016.

“The world is in the midst of an unprecedented transition to an era of connected intelligence,” said GF CEO Sanjay Jha. “This new 12LP technology provides the performance and density improvements necessary to help our customers continue innovating at the system level, as they deliver real-time connectivity and edge processing to everything from high-end graphics and automobiles to industrial applications.”

“We are pleased to extend our longstanding relationship with GLOBALFOUNDRIES as a lead customer for their new 12LP technology,” said Mark Papermaster, CTO and senior vice president of technology and engineering, AMD. “Our deep collaboration with GF has helped AMD bring a set of leadership high-performance products to market in 2017 using 14nm FinFET technology. We plan to introduce new client and graphics products based on GF’s 12nm process technology in 2018 as a part of our focus on accelerating our product and technology momentum.”

In addition to transistor-level enhancements, the 12LP platform will include new market-focused features specifically designed for automotive electronics and RF/analog applications—two of the fastest-growing segments in the industry.

• Emerging automotive applications in vehicle safety and automated driving require a combination of processing power and extreme reliability. The 12LP platform delivers both, with plans for Automotive Grade 2 qualification at Fab 8 by Q4 2017.
• A new RF offering extends the 12LP platform for RF/analog applications such as premium-tier transceivers in sub-6GHz wireless networks. 12LP offers the best scaling in both logic and memory for RF chip architectures with primarily digital and less RF/analog content.

GF’s new 12nm FinFET technology complements its existing 12nm FD-SOI offering, 12FDXTM. While some applications require the unsurpassed performance of FinFET transistors, many connected devices need high levels of integration and more flexibility for performance and power consumption, at costs FinFET cannot achieve. 12FDX provides an alternative path for the next generation of connected intelligent systems, enabling the performance of 10nm FinFET with better power consumption, lower cost, and better RF integration than current-generation foundry FinFET offerings.

About GF:

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit https://www.globalfoundries.com.

Contacts:

Erica McGill GF (518) 795-4250 [email protected]