By Michael Mullaney

10. PDKs Get the Spotlight

Computer chips in automotive, aviation, smartphones, and other applications must be unquestionably reliable and perform exactly as expected. Developing and manufacturing these chips requires the ability to accurately model, simulate, and verify their designs. The process design kit (PDK) makes this possible.

The humble PDK found itself in the spotlight in 2020. Our blog post, PDKs: Powerful Enablers of First-Pass Silicon Success tells the story of how GF PDKs help our customers effectively create designs on 22FDX™, 12LP, and our many other differentiated platforms.

In 2020, we also announced some new ways in which we’re improving and enhancing GF PDKs. One is launching support of Open-Access based Interoperable PDKs, or iPDKs, for our 22FDX platform. Expanding our support to iPDK provides customers greater flexibility to use the design suite tools of their choice. Another great story highlighting PDKs was working with our ecosystem partner Mentor to add machine learning enhancements to the PDK of our 12LP+ solution.

9. GTC 2020 Goes Virtual

GF’s signature annual series of events, the Global Technology Conference (GTC), went virtual this year. With thousands of attendees, and nearly 125 guest speakers – including renowned visionaries, leaders, and technologists – sharing their unique insight and perspective on 5G, AI, IoT, and other topics, GTC was a big win for GF and for the semiconductor industry.

This year’s GTC was held in a virtual conference center. While of course not the same as a face-to-face conference, the immersive environment allowed for rich interaction and communications. We received great feedback from attendees both on the content of our 100+ sessions, as well as the virtual setting.

Click here to read top technology analyst Patrick Moorhead’s recap of GTC 2020 North America.

8. GF Raises a SHIELD

It’s no secret that semiconductors are highly sensitive, and GF is trusted every day with information regarding our customers’ proprietary intellectual property and products. 

This year, we launched GF SHIELD. The comprehensive platform embraces GF’s years of experience manufacturing the world’s most secure semiconductor solutions for the U.S government, the defense and aerospace industry, as well as manufacturing in accordance with the international Common Criteria standard. 

GF SHIELD extends these world-class security capabilities to all of our customers. From the initial meeting, through development, design, fabrication, delivery, and even disposal of scrap – and every step between – GF SHIELD is in place to ensure a customer’s products and sensitive information remain secure. Click here to read more about GFShield.

7. 5G Gets a Boost

So much of what you love about your smartphone – reliable connectivity, great sound, sharp display, and more – is enabled by GF silicon. Mobility and 5G are always on our minds and this year was no exception. As our very own Dr. Bami Bastani said: 

“Eight out of ten smartphones on the market today include GLOBALFOUNDRIES manufactured silicon, and the demand for our differentiated RF solutions continues to skyrocket as the industry transitions to 5G … The 5G revolution would not be possible without GLOBALFOUNDRIES and our industry-leading specialty RF solutions.”

In 2020, we blogged about GF being the world’s only foundry with in-house mmWave testing capabilities, and how this and other post-fab turnkey services are accelerating 5G by helping customers bring their products to market faster and more cost-effectively. 

We were also excited to announce the arrival of 22FDX+, the next generation of our best-in-class FDX platform, to meet the ever-growing need for higher performance and ultra-low power requirements of connected devices. The first specialty solution to be available on the 22FDX+ platform will 22FDX RF+, optimized to boost the performance of front-end-module (FEM) designs for 5G smartphones.

Check out this video of GF CEO Tom Caulfield having a conversation with Robert Donahue, CEO of 5G customer Anokiwave.

6. Accelerating AutoPro

In 2018, mid-sized cars contained an average $410 worth of semiconductors. By 2030, that figure is forecast to be nearly $1,100 per car. GF is uniquely positioned to support and accelerate this growth, thanks to our rich experience and expertise in the auto space, and the peerless performance and flexibility of our 22FDX platform.

We are pedal-to-the-metal on auto at GF, and our blog post, GF’s AutoPro™ Solutions Drive Automotive Electronics Forward, details how our broad portfolio of differentiated solutions and our AutoPro Solutions service package uniquely support all automotive technical, packaging/testing, sourcing and quality requirements.

Said GF’s Michael Brucker:

“AutoPro enables us to pull resources from every relevant area of our organization in an integrated fashion to ensure that the design is capable and robust enough for the intended use, producible on the required timeline, and that it will lead to a quality part. If not, we work with the customer to change it, based on our decade-plus experience serving automotive customers.”

5. Making AI Smarter

Across all industries and technologies, the scope, complexity, and promise of artificial intelligence, or AI, increasingly came into focus in 2020. As outlined in our blog post, The Challenge and Opportunity of Reducing Power on AI Processors, the power requirement of AI is central to shaping its future.

GF has embraced this challenge as an opportunity, with the credo “build smarter, not smaller chips.” This strategy was captured in a white paper by The Linley Group, titled Building Better AI Chips. It was also evident in our July story announcing a new AI chip created in partnership innovation hub Imec, built on 22FDX using a promising new architecture, which demonstrates incredible power efficiency. 

Arguably our biggest AI story of the year was the announcement that GF’s 12LP+ solution completed technology qualification is ready for production. GF’s most advanced FinFET solution, 12LP+ is optimized for AI accelerator applications, and builds upon our successful 12LP platform. 

GF’s own Amir Faintuch sums it up artfully:

“Artificial intelligence is on a trajectory to become the most disruptive technology of our lifetime … It is increasingly clear that the power efficiency of AI systems – in particular how many operations you can wrest from a watt of power – will be among the most critical factors a company considers when deciding to invest in data centers or edge AI applications.” 

Our new 12LP+ solution, Faintuch said, tackles this challenge head-on and is optimized, “obsessively so,” with AI in mind.

4. IoT Continue to Push the Edge

Many of us may not realize how much we rely on the Internet of Things, or IoT, on a daily basis. Have you ever asked your smart speaker about the weather? Or checked who was at your front door with your smart camera? Maybe adjusted the heat with your app-controlled thermostat, or checked your heart rate with your smart wristband? Then you’re connected with the IoT.

GF enables the connectivity of IoT devices and our expertise in RF, 5G and AI helps improve the battery life of IoT devices, by allowing them to process data efficiently, without the need for spending power to send that data to a network or the web. 

Our 22FDX platform, with its incredible performance and ultralow power requirements, is perfectly suited for IoT application. (Its just-announced successor, 22FDX+, will extend this IoT leadership far into the future.) In 2020, we announced two exciting new IoT applications built on 22FDX. 

First, GF is partnering with Movano Inc. to advance the commercialization of Movano’s wearable, non-invasive continuous glucose monitor, which is currently in development. Additionally, GreenWaves Technologies announced its new hearables platform, which enables state-of-the-art features such as scene-aware active noise cancellation and neural network-based noise reduction.

In another story about 22FDX’s unique Adaptive Body feature, Steve Tieg, CEO of GF IoT/AI customer Perceive, said:

“GF’s 22FDX platform has a tremendous amount of horsepower, and its power advantages, low leakage, and adaptive body bias feature make it an excellent choice for IoT applications like ours.”

For more on this topic, check out this series of videos for a great conversation with Tieg and GF’s own Mike Hogan.

3. Tech Giving Back

This year, with all of its unprecedented challenges, also saw the tech and semiconductor industry come together to make real impacts in their communities.

Through our GlobalGives initiative, GF donated critical masks, gloves, and other personal protection equipment to those who needed it most. Globally, GF donated more than 130,000 facemasks in our communities. In the U.S., our employee-driven facemask donation program fulfilled more than 1,750 requests, shipping out 85,000 masks to health care workers, first responders, and other high-risk individuals. Our tremendous Fab 8 logistics team went above and beyond to make this possible.

GF also gave $1.6 million in corporate donations, plus an additional $500,000 contributed by employees, to 27 charities across 11 GF sites. Most of these charities were local/regional, and chosen specifically by our employees for making an impact in the local community.

To keep spirits high amidst the pandemic, a group of GF employees wrote and performed this song to share with colleagues around the world.

2. Innovating Ahead

It is impossible to overstate the importance of innovation to our industry. While innovation may mean different things to different companies, for GF it means making smarter chips with rich features, optimized for specific applications, and as power-efficient as possible. As our CEO Tom Caulfield said at our GTC 2020 event, this is all on the path to accelerating the digital transformation that is already underway:

“GF has focused our entire company on building a number of innovative solutions that can flatten the curve and significantly lower the power consumption of the digital infrastructure … We are redefining the leading-edge of innovation.”

Within GF, we promote a culture of innovation and inventiveness. Our blog post, “Master Inventors” Driving Innovation and Differentiation at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, dives deep into the importance and impact of our Master Inventor program. Through the program, GF bestows the coveted title of Master Inventor upon a select colleagues with at least 20 issued U.S. patents and who have a demonstrated track record of technical accomplishments and IP asset creation. To date, more than 50 GF employees have been honored with the title Master Inventor.

Another way GF innovates is by collaborating with many of the world’s leading academic researchers. 

Through our University Partnership Program, GF benefits from the expertise of these thinkers and experimentalists, while providing them with access to our technology to demonstrate innovative designs. Read about some of our R&D on 6G technology in the blog post, GF Partners with Leading Researchers on 6G Technologies.

1. Specialty Goes Mainstream

With so many exciting announcements this year, it’s been a challenge to narrow them down into a curated selection. Here are a few final quick-hit pieces of good news: 

GlobalFoundries Has Quietly Become A Player In Silicon Photonics Manufacturing: “Through strategic acquisitions … and fruitful partnerships … GlobalFoundries quietly became a force in silicon photonics. It’s already captured 10% of the foundry business—if it continues at this rate, it will soon be impossible to overlook.”

22FDX For the Win: “To date, GF’s 22FDX platform has realized $4.5 billion in design wins, with more than 350 million chips shipped to customers around the world.”

28HV Solution Accelerates GF Leadership in OLED Display Drivers for Mobile Devices: “With more than 75 million units shipped to leading smartphone suppliers, GF’s 28HV solution is optimized to enable faster, brighter, sharper, and more power-efficient OLED displays.”

55 BCDLite Solution Positions GF for Continued Leadership in Audio Amplifiers for Mobile Devices: “With more than 3 billion units shipped, GF’s 55 BCDLite solution is featured in five of seven of today’s leading top-tier premium smartphones.”

GLOBALFOUNDRIES Delivers Industry’s First Production-ready eMRAM on 22FDX Platform for IoT and Automotive Applications: “GF’s eMRAM allows designers to extend their existing IoT and microcontroller unit architectures to access the power and density benefits of technology nodes below 28nm.”

By Shelly Stalnaker

I recently had the chance to attend an on-demand webinar introducing the new GLOBALFOUNDRIES DRC+ hotspot solution that incorporates machine learning in the Calibre toolsuite. Presented by Sriram Madhavan (GLOBALFOUNDRIES) and Michael White (Mentor, a Siemens Business), the webinar walks through the new DRC+ DFM solution, and explains how the addition of machine learning expands and improves both the capabilities and results.

Click here to read the full blog post, on the site of our ecosystem partner Mentor.

Through its University Partnership Program, GF benefits from the expertise of academic researchers while providing them with access to the technology to demonstrate innovative designs

by Gary Dagastine

It may seem premature to talk about 6G wireless communications just as 5G technology is beginning to be deployed in earnest, but the R&D community is already hard at work investigating the technologies needed to make 6G a practical and commercial reality later this decade.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) is taking steps to establish a leadership position in 6G by collaborating with top researchers at leading universities to leverage the unparalleled benefits of its FD-SOI, RF-SOI and SiGe platforms, which already have been proven in 5G and other wireless applications to deliver industry-leading performance and cost-effectiveness.

Wireless connectivity is a major focus for GF, along with artificial intelligence (AI), edge-to-cloud computing and automotive solutions, because the company’s strategy is to be a leading supplier of the differentiated, feature-rich technologies needed to help shape the digital transformation of our world.

6G is the sixth generation of wireless communications technology. It will be significantly faster than 5G, capable of transmitting huge amounts of data at speeds that may reach or exceed 100 gigabytes per second (Gb/s) with little or no effective latency, or lag time.

Gammel said there are countless other ways 6G technology will help change the world. “We’ve gotten familiar with the concept of telemedicine during the Covid-19 pandemic, and 6G could raise it to new heights. In robotic surgery, for instance, lifelike 3D images not only could guide a surgeon through an especially challenging operation, but the surgeon using the robot could be located thousands of miles away from the patient,” he said. “6G also will facilitate the use of AI everywhere in a network from the edge, to the customer, to the core, for greater efficiencies, speed and reduced costs.”

6G Technical Challenges & Opportunities

Technical standards for 6G systems haven’t been developed yet, but the initial 6G frequency range is likely to be from about 50 GHz to 200 GHz, with initial applications expected at the low end, near the top end of the 5G range. This is a blazingly fast and uncongested part of the RF spectrum, but these millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies have certain characteristics that make the technical development and economics of 6G systems challenging.

One major technical challenge is the need for power-efficient LNA amplifiers (a key component of wireless systems) to amplify low-power 6G signals without significantly degrading the signal-to-noise ratio, which is key to error-free performance.

Another is the need for accurate mmWave device simulations and models, along with hardware-validated process design kits, or PDKs, for successful, cost-efficient semiconductor design and production. This is a huge unmet need at high frequencies.

Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is that mmWaves suffer high propagation losses because they are absorbed by water vapor and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere, so finding ways to increase the over-the-air output power of transceivers is critical. Another propagation challenge is that mmWaves are easily blocked by walls, trees and other objects.

These propagation challenges mean that 6G networks will require many base stations and small cell sites located in fairly close proximity to one another to relay signals. Given the large number of semiconductors that will be needed for these dense networks, economic considerations will be critical.

Gammel said all of these challenges play to GF’s strengths, which include:

• 22FDX™ and 22FDX+ FD SOI solutions, which combine RF, analog, embedded memory, and advanced logic in one chip, with dynamic voltage scaling and unmatched design flexibility for peak performance and energy-efficiency. Customers use FDX for such tasks as integrating front-end module (FEM) elements like data converters, LNAs, power amplifiers (PAs) and switches with the transceiver.
• GF’s family of RF SOI solutions, used in integrated FEMs and beamformers in 5G base stations and smartphones.
• GFs family of silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS solutions for Wi-Fi and mmWave FEM’s

“6G gives us a vision for solutions based on merged technologies in which GF already has undisputed leadership,” Gammel said. “What’s great about these proven, cost-effective solutions is that they are nowhere near the limit of their capabilities. Their performance can be extended in step with the wireless industry as it evolves, moving past the upper reaches of the 5G spectrum and extending into the 6G frequency range. Customers will not have to turn to new technologies and exotic materials to get the performance they need; they will be able to get it from well-understood, production-ready and cost-effective silicon-based technology.” 

Partnerships with Leading 6G Researchers

GF is actively promoting 6G circuit and system research via the company’s University Partnership Program, through which GF provides access to technology to select university teams who collaborate with GF’s R&D team and share their research results.

The program is large and impactful. “Worldwide, we work with over 35 universities in various areas of technology, including 6G,” said Bika Carter, Sr. Manager and Deputy Director of External R&D Management for GF. “Peer-reviewed published papers are a key measure of the quality of our academic partners, and their publishing output is large and growing. In 2019 and 2020, there have been over 200 publications from our professors across our technologies. We have active university programs in 22FDX, 45RFSOI, silicon germanium (SiGe) and silicon photonics technologies.”

Ned Cahoon, Senior Director in GF’s Mobile and Wireless Infrastructure CTO office, works closely with many of the professors affiliated with GF’s University Partnership Program who are working on 6G technology. “We are technology leaders in mmWave, so we look for professors and academic programs that are tackling what we see as key 6G circuit and system issues that can be addressed by GF’s differentiated technology, such as FE, or front-end, circuits, at frequencies above 100GHz,” he said. “The professors we work with are renowned in their field, with great track records, and we work with them as partners. They share their research with us, and we help further their work by giving them access to our silicon on multi-project wafers.”

No Doubts About Silicon

One of GF’s academic partners is Gabriel Rebeiz, Ph. D., Distinguished Professor and the Wireless Communications Industry Endowed Chair at the University of California San Diego. Professor Rebeiz is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering and an IEEE Fellow. He is a pioneer of integrated phased arrays for communications and defense systems, and was the first to introduce MEMS and micromachining to the RF/microwave field.

At UC-San Diego, his group has led the development of complex RFICs for phased-array applications. His phased-array work is now used by most companies developing complex communication and radar systems, and he has graduated some 100 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows.

At present his students are working on a broad set of research projects ranging from wideband systems in 45RFSOI to 140GHz phased arrays. “Before 6G comes along, there’ll be 24 GHz, 28 GHz, 39 GHz and 46 GHz chips used in 5G communications, so we’re working on a lot of wideband chips using the same processes and techniques that we will extend to 6G devices,” he said. “These are high-risk, high-payoff types of projects, and we push the limits of technology. GLOBALFOUNDRIES has been a great partner as we do this. We cover a large technical area and they support our innovative work.”

Prof. Rebeiz said he is convinced silicon is the solution for the higher reaches of the 5G band and for 6G applications up to about 220 GHz. For example, using GF’s technologies in a forward path transmit module (FPTM), his team recently achieved 12dBm of output power at 140GHz with 11-12 percent efficiency. “That’s a phenomenally good figure for point-to-point communications, given that the current figure-of-merit is 6dBm, but also, we’re doing it at 140GHz!” he said.

“As the number of elements needed in dense 6G networks increases so much, the power needed per element must necessarily decrease if these systems are to be practical, and instead of the 20dBm per element we now have at 28 GHz, we might need only 3-6dBm,” Rebeiz said. “So, without any doubt power-efficient silicon technologies like 22FDX will be dominant above 100GHz for any array application.”

Many challenges remain, of course – Prof. Rebeiz said packaging and testing are critical needs:  “What are we going to do to make test affordable in the future? Nobody’s going to test up to 140GHz because it is so difficult and expensive, but we can’t make progress without it” – but this work represents a great opportunity for his students.

“My students and I are hardware people,” he said. “We like building stuff. What my students are doing is vitally important for the world, and as such, this is truly a golden age for them.”