GLOBALFOUNDRIES Introduces Avera Semi, a Wholly Owned Subsidiary to Deliver Custom ASIC Solutions

New company leverages unrivaled legacy of bringing complex ASICs to market

Solutions will focus on networking, datacenter, AI/ML and other high-performance intelligent systems
 

Santa Clara, Calif., November 1, 2018 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced the establishment of Avera Semiconductor LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary dedicated to providing custom silicon solutions for a broad range of applications. Avera Semi will leverage deep ties with GF to deliver ASIC offerings on 14/12nm and more mature technologies while providing clients new capabilities and access to alternate foundry processes at 7nm and beyond.
 

Avera Semi is built upon an unrivaled legacy of ASIC expertise, tapping into a world-class team that has executed more than 2,000 complex designs in its 25-year history. With more than 850 employees, annual revenues in excess of $500 million, and over $3 billion in 14nm designs in execution, Avera Semi is well positioned to serve clients developing products across a wide range of markets, including wired and wireless networking, data centers and storage, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and aerospace and defense.
 

The new company is led by Kevin O’Buckley, a leader in the ASIC business since joining GF as part of the acquisition of IBM Microelectronics in 2015. Previously, he spent nearly 20 years at IBM in a variety of roles spanning both technical and executive leadership positions.
 

“I couldn’t imagine a better time to launch a new venture focused on delivering custom ASIC solutions,” O’Buckley said. “Data traffic and bandwidth demands have exploded, and next-generation systems for cloud and communications must deliver more performance and handle more complexity than ever before. Avera Semi has the right combination of expertise and technology to help our clients design and build high-performance, highly optimized semiconductor solutions.”
 

“Arm has a long history of collaborating with the team building Avera Semi to enhance PPA and bring innovative solutions to market,” said Drew Henry, senior vice president and general manager, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm. “As the needs for compute requirements continue to evolve and diversify, we look forward to joining Avera’s capabilities and technologies with Arm Neoverse solutions and physical design IP to deliver unique value to a broad customer base.”

 

“Synopsys’ long history of collaboration with GF has enabled us to deliver a broad portfolio of high-quality DesignWare IP on a range of GF processes,” said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for IP at Synopsys. “We look forward to continuing this success with Avera Semi to provide designers with the necessary IP for their next-generation, high-performance SoC designs on advanced FinFET processes.”

 

Avera Semi offers clients a range of capabilities to enable end-to-end silicon solutions:
 

  • ASIC offerings on both leading-edge and proven process technologies, including a newly established foundry partnership on 7nm

  • A rich IP portfolio, including high-speed SerDes, high-performance embedded TCAMs, ARM® cores and performance and density-optimized embedded SRAMs

  • A comprehensive, production-proven design methodology that builds on a strong record of first-time-right results to help reduce development costs and time-to-market

  • Advanced packaging options to increase bandwidth, eliminate I/O bottlenecks, and reduce memory area, latency and power

  • Flexible ASIC business engagement models that give clients the ability to supplement in-house resources with the level of support needed from experienced chip design, methodology, test and packaging teams
     

About Avera Semi

Avera Semi provides application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) semiconductor solutions that deliver system-level differentiation for next-generation networking, data center, machine learning, automotive, and aerospace and defense applications. The company was established in 2018 to provide clients sustained access to leading-edge lithography technologies at 7nm and beyond, while leveraging deep ties with GLOBALFOUNDRIES to deliver ASIC offerings on 14/12nm and older technologies. Avera Semi is a wholly owned subsidiary of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. For more information, visit averasemi.com.
 

About GF

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) is a leading full-service foundry delivering truly differentiated semiconductor technologies for a range of high-growth markets. GF provides a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services, with a range of innovative IP and feature-rich offerings including FinFET, FDX™, RF, and power/analog mixed signal. With a manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GF has the flexibility and agility to meet the dynamic needs of clients across the globe. GF is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit globalfoundries.com.
 

Contact:
 

Jason Gorss

GLOBALFOUNDRIES

(518) 698-7765

 

[email protected]

格芯宣布成立全资子公司Avera Semi,提供定制ASIC解决方案

新公司充分利用无与伦比的技术传承,将复杂ASIC推向市场
 

其解决方案将专注于网络、数据中心、AI/ML和其他高性能智能系统
 

加利福尼亚州圣克拉拉,2018年11月1日 – 格芯今日宣布成立全资子公司Avera Semiconductor LLC,致力于为各种应用提供定制芯片解决方案。Avera Semi将充分利用与格芯的深厚联系,提供14/12nm以及更成熟技术的ASIC产品,同时为客户提供7nm及以下的新能力和替代代工工艺。
 

Avera Semi拥有无与伦比的ASIC专业知识传承,充分利用世界一流团队,在过去25年中完成了2,000多项复杂设计。Avera Semi拥有850多名员工,年收入超过5亿美元,14nm设计收入预计超过30亿美元,具有十分显著的优势,为客户在广泛的市场上开发产品,包括有线和无线网络、数据中心和存储、人工智能和机器学习,以及航空航天和国防。
 

新公司由Kevin O’Buckley领导,自格芯于2015年收购IBM微电子业务以来,他一直是ASIC业务的负责人。在此之前,他在IBM工作了近20年,担任过各种技术和管理领导职位。
 

O’Buckley表示:“现在是成立新公司,专注于提供定制ASIC解决方案的最好时机。随着数据流量和带宽需求的激增,下一代云和通信系统必须提供更高的性能,处理前所未有的复杂性。Avera Semi拥有专业知识与技术的完美结合,可帮助客户设计和构建性能卓越、高度优化的半导体解决方案。”
 

Arm基础设施业务部高级副总裁兼总经理Drew Henry表示:“Arm与Avera Semi构建的团队拥有悠久的合作历史,不断提升PPA和推出创新解决方案。随着计算需求的不断演进和多样化,我们期待将Arm Neoverse解决方案和物理设计IP与Avera的能力和技术相结合,为广泛的客户群提供独特的价值。”
 

Synopsys IP营销副总裁John Koeter表示:“Synopsys与格芯的悠久的合作历史使我们能够在一系列格芯工艺上提供具有高质量DesignWare IP的广泛产品组合。我们期待与Avera Semi延续过去的成功,为设计人员提供必要的IP,通过先进的FinFET工艺实现下一代高性能SoC设计。”

 

Avera Semi为客户提供各种功能,以实现端到端的芯片解决方案:
 

  • ASIC产品基于先进且经过验证的工艺技术(包括新建立的7nm晶圆厂合作关系)

  • 丰富的IP产品组合,包括高速SerDes、高性能嵌入式TCAM、ARM®内核以及经过性能和密度优化的嵌入式SRAM

  • 经过生产验证的全面设计方法,基于众多的一次成功结果,有助于降低开发成本并加快上市时间

  • 先进封装选项可增加带宽,消除I/O瓶颈,减少内存面积、延迟和功耗

  • 灵活的ASIC业务参与模式,使客户能够根据支持需求从经验丰富的芯片设计、方法、测试和封装团队补充内部资源
     

关于Avera Semi

Avera Semi提供专用集成电路(ASIC)半导体解决方案,为下一代网络、数据中心、机器学习、汽车以及航天和国防应用提供系统级差异化。公司成立于2018年,可持续为用户提供7纳米及以下的领先光刻技术,同时利用与格芯的紧密联系,在14/12纳米及更成熟的技术上提供ASIC产品。Avera Semi是格芯的全资子公司。欲了解更多信息,请访问avera.com。
 

关于格芯

格芯是全球领先的全方位服务半导体代工厂,为世界上最富有灵感的科技公司提供独一无二的设计、开发和制造服务。伴随着全球生产基地横跨三大洲的发展步伐,格芯促生了改变行业的技术和系统的出现,并赋予了客户塑造市场的力量。格芯由阿布扎比穆巴达拉投资公司(Mubadala Investment Company)所有。欲了解更多信息,请访问 https://www.globalfoundries.com/cn
 

媒体垂询:

杨颖(Jessie Yang)

(021) 8029 6826

[email protected]
 

邢芳洁(Jay Xing)

86 18801624170

[email protected]

 

Netronome Announces Open Chiplet Architecture for Advanced SoC Designs

Netronome, a leader in high-performance intelligent networking solutions, today announced an open architecture for domain-specific accelerators designed to significantly reduce the burgeoning cost of silicon development as demanded by modern data center server, edge computing and automotive applications.

Netronome 发布针对先进SoC设计的开放Chiplet架构

Netronome, a leader in high-performance intelligent networking solutions, today announced an open architecture for domain-specific accelerators designed to significantly reduce the burgeoning cost of…

格芯与成都合作伙伴调整成都合资公司战略

顺应格芯近期宣布的技术组合战略,将合资企业重心转变至满足中国市场高需求的差异化技术

 

中华人民共和国,成都20181026日——今日,格芯与成都合作伙伴签署了投资合作协议修正案。基于市场条件变化、格芯于近期宣布的重新专注于差异化解决方案,以及与潜在客户的商议,将取消对成熟工艺技术(180nm/130nm)的原项目一期投资。同时,将修订项目时间表,以更好地调整产能,满足基于中国的对差异化产品的需求包括格芯业界领先的22FDX技术。

凭借逾20亿美元的设计中标收入以及50多项客户设计,格芯的22FDX技术在汽车、5G连接以及物联网(IoT)等各种高速增长的应用领域内展示了其作为业界领先的功耗优化的芯片平台的吸引力。格芯的中国客户已开始在位于德国德累斯顿的格芯先进生产基地中采用这种技术包括7名客户超过8个产品进入生产爬坡的不同阶段。。

 

瑞芯微电子CEO励民表示:“我们和格芯合作已经很久了。 22FDX低功耗的特点使其非常适合我们的不同产品,比如安防、AI等。我们也期待22FDX落地在中国生产,这将为我们带来更多的便利。”

双方合作伙伴仍计划继续推进FDSOI生态系统建设,包括创建本地技术基础设施、引进更多IP供应商和EDA合作伙伴等,使成都成为FDX技术的重要中心并赋能本土市场的采用以及需求产生。

 

成都股东方认为:“此次格芯成都项目的调整变化为合作双方留出充分时间进行评估,以更准确地掌握中国市场需求,为未来新的产能规划和项目实质性启动做好前期准备”。

格芯CEO汤姆·嘉菲尔德(Tom Caulfield)表示:“作为全球规模最大、增长最快的半导体市场之一,中国是格芯高优先市场。FDX技术特别适合中国市场,我们将继续见证其在5GIoT以及边缘计算等极富吸引力的市场领域的巨大潜力。我们将与成都政府继续深化务实合作,坚定推动成都项目的实施,共同加快中国FDX技术生态系统和客户群的发展。”

关于格芯

格芯是全球领先的全方位服务半导体代工厂,为世界上最富有灵感的科技公司提供独一无二的设计、开发和制造服务。伴随着全球生产基地横跨三大洲的发展步伐,格芯促生了改变行业的技术和系统的出现,并赋予了客户塑造市场的力量。格芯由阿布扎比穆巴达拉投资公司(Mubadala Investment Company)所有。欲了解更多信息,请访问 https://www.globalfoundries.com/cn

媒体垂询:
 

杨颖(Jessie Yang

(021) 8029 6826

[email protected]

邢芳洁(Jay Xing

86 18801624170

[email protected]

 

GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Chengdu Realign Joint Venture Strategy

To re-focus JV on high-demand, differentiated technologies for the Chinese market in line with GF’s recently announced shift to its technology portfolio

 

Chengdu, People’s Republic of China, Oct 26, 2018 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES and the Chengdu municipality signed an amendment to their investment and cooperation agreement today. Based on market condition changes, GF’s recently announced renewed focus on differentiated offerings, and discussions with potential clients, the partners have decided to bypass the original phase one investment in mainstream process technology (180/130nm). It is also agreed that the project timeline will be adapted to better align capacity to meet China-based demand for differentiated offerings including GF’s industry leading 22FDX® technology.

 

With more than $2 billion of design wins and more than 50 client designs, GF’s 22FDX technology is demonstrating traction as the industry’s leading platform for power-optimized chips across a broad range of high-growth applications such as automotive, 5G connectivity and the Internet of Things (IoT). GF’s Chinese clients are beginning to adopt the technology at GF’s advanced manufacturing site in Dresden, Germany, including seven customers and more than nine products in various stages of manufacturing ramp.

 

“We have a long-term relationship with GF and the 22FDX with its low power is very suitable for our various products, including AI and security,” said Min Li, CEO of Rockchip. “Once we achieve the right level of readiness, we look forward to ramping our production closer to home in China.”

 

The partners plan to continue to build a world-class FD-SOI ecosystem, including creating local technology infrastructure and bringing in more IP vendors and EDA partners, making Chengdu a center of excellence for FDXTM technology and thereby enabling local market adoption and demand generation.

 

“As a strategic partner of the GF and Chengdu joint venture, we believe this realignment of the project plan is based on recognizing rapidly changing market conditions,” stated the Chengdu Shareholder. “The goal is to allow both parties sufficient time to better understand the demand picture in China so as to plan for optimal capacity and a production time.”

 

“China, as one of the largest and fastest growing semiconductor markets around the globe, is a high priority for GF,” said GF CEO Tom Caulfield. “FDX technology is particularly well-suited to the China market and we continue to see strong potential for its up-take in attractive segments such as 5G, IoT and edge computing. We’ll be working with Chengdu to deepen our collaboration to jointly accelerate the FDX ecosystem and customer base in China.”

 

About GF

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) is a leading full-service foundry delivering truly differentiated semiconductor technologies for a range of high-growth markets. GF provides a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services, with a range of innovative IP and feature-rich offerings including FinFET, FDX™, RF, and power/analog mixed signal. With a manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GF has the flexibility and agility to meet the dynamic needs of clients across the globe. GF is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit globalfoundries.com.

 

Gary Patton: A Focus on New Dimensions of Innovation

By: Gary Dagastine

Whenever a company announces a major strategy shift and restructuring, as GF did in pivoting away from 7nm FinFET technology development, it’s understandable that confusion, uncertainty and misunderstandings may arise.

The best way to allay these concerns is to take an objective look at the situation: Demand for chips for the automotive, IoT, mobility and data center/wireless infrastructure markets is growing strongly. That opens up many new opportunities to leverage GF’s broad portfolio of existing, proven technologies by tailoring, or differentiating, them specifically for these markets. In addition, many potential clients in these areas are startups or non-traditional firms that can benefit from GF’s expanding service offerings. Stepping off the hugely expensive FinFET scaling treadmill, therefore, lets GF redeploy its resources to better pursue these opportunities.

Dr. Gary Patton, GF’s Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Worldwide Research and Development, explained these industry dynamics and discussed GF’s technology strategy in a keynote talk recently at the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) Silicon Summit East 2018 forum in Saratoga Springs, NY. The Foundry Files sat down with him afterward to learn more.

FF: For decades progress in electronics has depended on making transistors smaller to increase the speed and processing power of integrated circuits. What has changed?

Gary: Scaling does still have a place for chips used in high-performance computing, but elsewhere the benefits to be gained by following Moore’s Law are diminishing as scaling costs escalate. That doesn’t mean innovation is finished, though. The good news is that existing technologies are now so powerful that by adding new features to them and combining them in various ways, new architectures and ways of computing are possible. What’s really happening is a shift is taking place, from a general-purpose computing approach to a more industry- or domain-specific one.

Dimension of Innovation: Innovation is shifting toward the creation of differentiated features for leading edge

FF: How is GF taking advantage of this shift?

Gary: Very successfully, given that a majority of our revenue already comes from differentiated offerings. What we call the four pillars supporting everything we do are our FDX, FinFET, RF and power/analog-mixed-signal (AMS) technologies.

Our FDX technology is purpose-built for today’s power-sensitive applications, offering low active and standby power yet with the density and performance needed. It offers unmatched RF performance for always-on connectivity, low latency, and higher data rates to help make RF-driven IoT a reality. There is a lot of interest from clients designing chips for the IoT, especially as IoT will make a shift in coming years from WiFi- to RF-enabled. Overall we will have about 20 FDX production tapeouts this year, and we expect that number to more than double next year.

In FinFETs, we are realigning our roadmap to serve the next wave of clients that will adopt the technology in coming years. We have shifted development resources to make our 14/12nm FinFET platform more relevant to them by delivering a range of innovative IP and features. For example, for emerging enterprise, cloud and communication applications, we’re working on one-time and multi-time programmable (OTP/MTP) embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) for ultra-high-security performance. This is based on GF’s physically undetectable and unclonable charge-trapping technology and will make possible market-leading security solutions. They also will offer higher levels of SoC integration. Our NVM solutions require no additional processing or masking steps, and are up to twice the density of similar OTP solutions based on dielectric fuse technology.

In RF, GF has a rich portfolio of offerings that align well with proposed architectures and which continue to advance in order to meet 5G and other requirements. RF FDX, for example, enables deep coverage, massive connections and low power consumption for narrow-band IoT, while RF FinFET technology offers excellent scaling and power consumption. RFSOI enables clients to build state-of-the-art LNAs/switches & control function integration for RF front-end modules, phased arrays, and millimeter-wave beamforming. Our various SiGe-based RF offerings are performance-tuned for a long list of low- and high-power applications including automotive radar/lidar, base stations, wired/optical/ mmWave & phased-array communications. By the way, clients are increasingly using our SiGe-based products with CMOS integration to displace the GaAs processes historically used for cellular and Wi-Fi power amplifiers.

Our AMS offerings span a wide range of process nodes (180-40nm) and voltages (3–700 volts), offering clients an outstanding selection of functions and price points. Our BCD/BCDLite and high-voltage (HV) technologies are based on GF’s efficient HV CMOS process and include power and HV transistors, precision analog passives and NVM memory for a wide range of traditional and emerging mobility, automotive, IoT and other applications.

 

GF’s feature-rich, differentiated offerings

FF: You mentioned in your talk that advanced packaging is a powerful differentiator for GF.  How so?

Gary: GF’s high-performance, cost-effective 2.5D, 3D, and silicon photonics advanced packaging technologies support each of the four pillars, and are aimed directly at emerging applications like 5G, networking/base stations, AI/ML and advanced automotive solutions.

For example, our though-silicon-via (TSV) technology is well-suited for differentiated uses such as TSVs for RF applications; grounded TSVs for power amplifiers; and isolated TSVs for stacking antennas and/or other passives on RF die (for excellent signal integrity and/or significant size reduction of mobile front-end modules). Also, when implemented through 2.5D and 3D die-stacking, TSVs can allow for reduced latency and power by moving memory closer to logic. Die-stacking can offer significant cost advantages through heterogeneous die partitioning and function re-use like splitting I/O, logic, and memory functions into smaller, lower-cost die using stacking package architectures versus traditional monolithic 2D design.

With regard to silicon photonics (SiPh) ICs, we have both fiber-attach and laser-attach packaging technology that will be offered through GF’s SiPh foundry offerings.

We have been executing qualifications of our advanced package offerings with major OSATs. For 3D packaging, we will support multiple thermal solution options at the OSATs depending on the product thermal needs, I would also like to point out that we have developed test technology for all of our advanced packaging solutions to help clients become familiar with them and speed their projects.

FF: What would you like to say about GF’s research activities now that the company has moved away from extremely scaled CMOS?

Gary: First of all, there was a perception that we were entirely focused on leading-edge research, or that it was the only research that really mattered to us, but that simply wasn’t the case. We have always conducted R&D to bring new features to our existing offerings, to add new capabilities, to increase their performance and/or to decrease their cost. Our FinFET technology provides a good example. First, we successfully integrated a MIM capacitor in the interconnect, which resulted in a 10% performance improvement. Then, we developed new IP libraries and achieved a further 5% boost. Right now we are enhancing the RF capabilities of these proven devices with an eye toward the rollout of 5G.

With the GF pivot, our research focus is to move more aggressively to differentiate our proven technologies—in effect, to create derivatives of them which enable new applications—to address the new opportunities we’ve been discussing.

FF: Where will this work take place?

Gary: We have a large R&D group in Malta whose focus is on differentiated CMOS technology development. Our team in East Fishkill works on silicon photonics, RF and packaging technology, key areas of differentiation for us. In Singapore we have a significant ongoing R&D effort in differentiated power and RF technologies at 40nm and larger nodes, while Burlington is where our industry-leading RF solutions are developed. We continue to collaborate with universities across the world and participate in industry research consortia such as imecFraunhofer and IME on a range of topics aligned with what we see as our best market opportunities.

FF: Any closing comments?

Gary: A company is only as good as its people, and I am very proud of our track record of first-time-right client tapeouts across our world-wide fabs. That’s not easy to do with such a complex set of technologies, and is a testament to the talent, professionalism and diligence of our colleagues and engineers.

About Author

Gary Dagastine

Gary Dagastine

Gary Dagastine is a writer who has covered the semiconductor industry for EE Times, Electronics Weekly and many specialized media outlets. He is a contributing editor at Nanochip Fab Solutions magazine and also is the Director of Media Relations for the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), the world’s most influential technology conference for semiconductors. He started in the industry at General Electric Co. where he provided communications support to GE’s power, analog and custom IC businesses. Gary is a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York.

 

Gary Patton:关注创新的新维度

作者: Gary Dagastine

每当一家公司宣布重大战略转变和重组时,市场上出现一些困惑、不确定和误解都是可以理解的,正如格芯宣布放弃7nm FinFET技术开发。

缓解这些担忧的最佳方法是客观看待事实:汽车、物联网、移动和数据中心/无线基础设施市场的芯片需求正在强劲增长。这为格芯开创了许多新机遇,通过针对这些市场进行量身定制或差异化,格芯可充分利用现有成熟技术的广泛组合。此外,这些领域的许多潜在客户是初创公司或非传统型公司,他们可以从格芯的服务产品扩充中受益。因此,放弃成本高昂的FinFET微缩投入,格芯可以重新部署其资源,以更好地抓住这些机遇。

最近,格芯全球研发部门的首席技术官兼副总裁Gary Patton博士参加纽约州萨拉托加温泉市的2018全球半导体联盟(GSA)硅峰会东部论坛,在主题演讲中阐释了行业动态并介绍了格芯的技术战略。随后,晶圆厂文件对他进行了详细采访。

FF:几十年来,电子器件的进步取决于不断缩小的晶体管尺寸,以提高集成电路的速度和处理能力。现在情况改变了吗?

Gary:微缩技术在高性能计算芯片领域中仍占有一席之地,但在其他领域,随着微缩成本不断增加,摩尔定律所带来的优势正在减少。但这并不意味着创新已经结束。好消息是,现有技术已经足够强大,通过添加新特性并以不同方式进行组合,有可能实现新的架构和计算方法。实际上,通用计算方法正转向特定行业或特定领域方法。

创新维度:创新正朝先进差异化特性创造方向转变

FF:格芯如何利用这种转变?

Gary:非常成功,我们的大部分收入来自差异化产品。支持我们一切业务行为的四大支柱是FDX、FinFET、射频和电源/模拟混合信号(AMS)技术。
我们的FDX技术专为当今的功耗敏感型应用而设计,既可提供低工作功耗和待机功耗,又可提供所需的密度和性能。它提供无与伦比的射频性能,可实现始终在线的连接、低延迟和更高的数据速率,从而帮助实现射频驱动的物联网。客户越来越关注物联网芯片设计,尤其物联网将在未来几年内从WiFi向射频转变。总的来说,今年我们有大约20个FDX生产流片,预计明年这个数字将翻一倍以上。

在FinFET方面,我们正在重新调整路线图,以便服务于未来几年采用该技术的下一波客户。通过一系列创新IP和特性,我们转变了开发资源,使14/12nm FinFET平台与客户建立更紧密的联系。例如,对于新兴企业、云和通信应用,我们正在开发一次性和多次可编程(OTP/MTP)嵌入式非易失性存储器(eNVM),以实现超高安全性能。该产品基于格芯物理上无法检测和不可克隆的电荷捕获技术,可实现市场领先的安全解决方案。该解决方案还将提供更高的SoC集成度。NVM解决方案无需额外的处理或屏蔽步骤,与基于介电熔丝技术的类似OTP解决方案相比,可提供双倍密度。

在射频方面,格芯拥有丰富的产品组合,可与建议的架构保持高度一致,并可继续发展以满足5G和其他要求。例如,RF FDX针对窄带物联网以实现深度覆盖、大规模连接和低功耗,而RF FinFET技术可提供出色的扩展和功耗性能。RFSOI使客户能够为射频前端模块、相控阵和毫米波波束成形构建先进的LNA/开关与控制功能的集成。我们的各种SiGe射频产品经过性能优化,适用于大量低功率和高功率应用,包括汽车雷达/激光雷达、基站、有线/光纤/毫米波通信和相控阵通信。顺带一提,客户越来越青睐我们基于SiGe的产品和CMOS集成,以取代传统上用于蜂窝和Wi-Fi功率放大器的GaAs工艺。

我们的AMS产品涵盖各种工艺节点(180-40nm)和电压(3-700V),为客户提供出色的功能和价位组合选择。BCD/BCDLite和高压(HV)技术基于格芯的高效HV CMOS工艺,包括电源和HV晶体管、精密模拟无源器件和NVM存储器,适用于各种传统和新兴的移动、汽车、物联网和其他应用。

格芯功能丰富的差异化产品

FF:您在演讲中提到先进封装是格芯强大的差异化优势。这是如何实现的?

Gary:格芯高性能、经济高效的2.5D、3D和硅光子学先进封装技术为四大支柱提供支持,直接面向新兴应用,如5G、网络/基站、AI/ML以及先进的汽车解决方案。

例如,我们的硅过孔(TSV)技术非常适合差异化应用,包括用于射频应用的TSV;用于功率放大器的接地TSV;用于射频芯片中堆叠天线和/或其他无源器件的隔离TSV(以获得出色的信号完整性和/或移动前端模块尺寸的显著减小)。此外,TSV通过2.5D和3D芯片堆叠实现,可使存储器更靠近逻辑器件,从而减少延迟和功耗。通过异构芯片分区和功能重复使用(例如,与传统的单芯片2D设计相比,使用堆叠封装架构可将I/O、逻辑和存储器功能分成尺寸更小、成本更低的芯片),芯片堆叠可提供显著的成本优势。

至于硅光子(SiPh) IC,我们将通过格芯的SiPh代工产品提供光纤连接和激光连接两种封装技术。

我们一直与主要OSAT合作完成先进封装产品的认证。针对3D封装,我们将根据产品热需求在OSAT端支持多种热解决方案选项,另外应指出,我们已经为所有先进封装解决方案开发了测试技术,以帮助客户熟悉这些方案并加快项目进展。

FF:格芯现已脱离CMOS极度微缩技术,公司目前的研究活动如何?

Gary:首先,有一种观点认为我们过去完全专注于前沿研究,或者说这是我们唯一关注的研究领域,事实并非如此。如何为现有产品带来新特性、增加新功能、提高性能和/或降低成本一直是我们的研发目标。FinFET技术就是一个很好的示例。首先,我们成功地在互连中集成了MIM电容,从而使性能提高10%。其次,我们开发了新的IP库,使性能进一步提高5%。目前,我们正在增强这些成熟器件的射频功能,准备5G的部署。
随着格芯的转型,研究重点将转向对成熟技术进行更积极的差异化(即创建衍生技术以实现新应用),以迎接我们一直在讨论的新机遇。

FF:这些研究工作将在哪里进行?

Gary:我们在马耳他拥有一个大型研发团队,专注于差异化CMOS技术的开发。东菲茨基尔的团队将致力于硅光子、射频和封装技术等差异化关键领域。新加坡方面正在进行40nm及以上节点的差异化电源和射频技术方研发,而伯灵顿正在开发业界领先的射频解决方案。我们将继续与世界各地的大学合作,参加各种相关主题(针对最佳市场机遇)的行业研究联盟,如imec、Fraunhofer和IME。

FF:您有什么结束语吗?

Gary:一流的公司离不开一流的员工,格芯全球晶圆厂客户流片一次成功率的出色表现让我自豪。在复杂的技术组合下实现这一目标绝非易事,这是员工和工程师才能、专业性和勤奋的证明。

关于作者

Gary Dagastine

Gary Dagastine是一位职业撰稿人,主要为EE Times、Electronics Weekly和许多专业媒体撰写关于半导体行业的文章。他是NanocEEhip Fab Solutions杂志的特约编辑,也是IEEE国际电子器件大会(IEDM)(全球最具影响力的半导体技术大会)的媒体关系主管。加入General Electric Co.之后,他开始涉足半导体行业,在该公司工作期间,他负责为GE功率、模拟和定制IC业务提供沟通支持。Gary毕业于纽约斯克内克塔迪联合大学。

FD-SOI: How Body Bias Creates Unique Differentiation

By: Manuel Sellier

Fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) relies on a very unique substrate whose layer thicknesses are controlled at the atomic scale. FD-SOI offers remarkable transistor performance in terms of power, performance, area and cost tradeoffs (PPAC), making it possible to cover from low-power to high-performance digital applications with a single technology platform. FD-SOI delivers numerous unique advantages including near-threshold supply capability, ultra-low sensitivity to radiation and very high intrinsic transistor speed, making it perhaps the fastest RF-CMOS technology on the market. On top of these advantages FD-SOI is the only CMOS technology to offer the possibility to fully control the threshold voltage of the transistors dynamically through body bias (Figure 1).

Figure 1: FD-SOI cross section and body bias principle.

In order to explain why body bias is such a game changing feature we start with the problems it helps to solve. In the search for higher energy efficiency digital designers face two main challenges. The first one relates to the impact of variations, which modifies the actual chip specification defined by the extreme cases of variations (the so called “corners”). This tends to degrade significantly the energy efficiency of the chip (cf. Figure 2). Therefore, to optimize the energy efficiency, product engineers often use compensation techniques (cf. Figure 3). The most common compensation technique is based on Adaptive Voltage Scaling (AVS), i.e. playing with the level of supply voltage depending on the process centering of the chip. This technique is widely deployed in the mobile phone for process compensation but faces severe limitation in automotive and IoT markets because of the strong impact in terms of reliability, the difficulty to implement efficient temperature and aging compensation and the new and specific design know-how that it involves for most design companies.

Figure 2: Principle of variations impact on energy efficiency.

Figure 3: Principle of compensation techniques.

The second problem lies in the optimization of energy consumption. With advanced technology scaling leakage power has most probably become the most critical problem to solve. It is important to balance correctly the level of leakage with the level of dynamic power. However, in bulk CMOS technologies the parameters fixing leakage (Vth, gate length) are mostly static and defined by process. There is therefore no adaptive leakage optimization possibility, except by switching off entire parts of the circuit. The energy point, i.e. the balance between dynamic and leakage power is fixed and cannot be changed dynamically.

Through its control of transistor threshold voltage, body bias acts as a control knob capable of solving most of these aforementioned issues facing designers targeting energy efficiency.

Not only can global variations be very efficiently mitigated, but also and most importantly, designers can design their chips with reduced design corners for process, temperature and aging, and boosting the Power-Performance-Area (PPA) tradeoff starting at synthesis.

Figure 4: Impact of process compensation techniques based on body bias. Source : Flatresse, ICICDT17

The leakage, which is exponentially dependent on the threshold voltage, can now be modified dynamically with body bias. Energy optimization can be performed dynamically by simultaneously playing with the right amount of supply voltage and body bias. The resulting energy efficiency gain is double at nominal Vdd and can increase to 6x at ultra-low voltage.

To efficiently implement body bias at the circuit level, one must modify current power management infrastructure, which leverages today’s supply voltage only, to support power management solutions capable of managing both supply voltage and body bias.

Dolphin Integration has been cooperating with GF over the past two years to release the world’s first power management IP platform. This power management IP platform, now proven in 22FDX, consists in a consistent set of configurable Voltage Regulators, scalable and module Power Management Unit (a.k.a. PMU logic/ACU), Power IO and island Gating and Voltage Monitors.

To allow SoC designers to extract the full PPAC potential of FD-SOI for their SoC, the companies are now exploring the extension of this power management IP platform to enable the dynamic control of power supply and body bias. This extended power management IP platform will leverage existing body biasing solutions while complementing them with application-optimized body bias generators and advanced monitoring techniques (cf. Figure 5).

Figure 5: Dolphin current power management infrastructure and the project ongoing to include body bias. Source : F. Renoux, SOI Consortium Shanghai 2018.

The presence of these kinds of solutions available on the market is driving the value proposition for FD-SOI outperforming PPA against any other technology for low power and energy efficient applications. More importantly, the availability of a body biasing turnkey solution lowers significantly entry barriers, making this FD-SOI value proposition available to all players, from mobile and IoT to automotive.

The value of FD-SOI is truly based on the capability to leverage body bias, which is a completely disruptive approach in the advanced CMOS landscape compared to existing technologies. FD-SOI is a game-changer, realizing an order of magnitude power efficiency gain. With the support of silicon IP providers like Dolphin Integration, new power/performance/reliability management infrastructures will be available to customers to fully leverage the benefits of this technology, paving the way to future performance standards in IoT and automotive.

About Author

Manuel Sellier

Manuel Sellier

Manuel Sellier is Soitec’s product marketing manager, responsible for defining the business plans, marketing strategies, and design specifications for the fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI), photonics-SOI, and imager-SOI product lines. Before joining Soitec, he worked for STMicroelectronics, initially as a digital designer covering advanced signoff solutions for high-performance application processors. He earned his Ph.D. degree in the modeling and circuit simulation of advanced metal–oxide–semiconductor transistors (FD-SOI and fin field-effect transistors). He holds several patents in various fields of engineering and has published a wide variety of papers in journals and at international conferences.

 

eMemory’s OTP IP Qualified on GLOBALFOUNDRIES 22nm FD-SOI process

eMemory today announced that its one-time programmable (OTP) non-volatile memory IP, NeoFuse, has been qualified on GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) 22FDX ® 22nm Fully-Depleted Silicon On-Insulator (FD-SOI) process technology…