Category: Uncategorized

GlobalFoundries Expands Partner Program to Speed Time-to-Market of FDX™ Solutions

Increased support affirms FDXcelerator™ Program’s vital role in promoting broader deployment of GLOBALFOUNDRIES FDX™ portfolio

Santa Clara, Calif., December 15, 2016 – GF today announced the addition of eight new partners to its growing FDXcelerator Program, including Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (ASE Group), Amkor Technology, Infosys, Mentor Graphics, Rambus, Sasken, Sonics, and QuickLogic. These new partners join Synopsys, Cadence, INVECAS, VeriSilicon, CEA Leti, Dreamchip, and Encore Semi to provide a suite of services that will enable GF customers to rapidly implement 22FDX® system-on-chip (SoC) designs in low-power applications spanning Internet-of-Things (IoT), mobile, RF connectivity, and networking markets.

The FDXcelerator Partner Program builds upon GF’s 22FDX and 12FDX™ technologies, an alternative to FinFET-based technologies for chips that require performance on demand and energy efficiency at the lowest solution cost. GF’s 22FDX platform provides a lower-cost migration path from bulk nodes such as 40nm and 28nm, which allows customers to design differentiated, intelligent, and fully-integrated system solutions.

FDXcelerator partners play a critical role by providing a set of specific solutions and resources that help increase design productivity on FDX technology and reduce time-to-market for its customers. GF works closely with program partners to help customers create high-performance 22FDX designs while minimizing development costs through access to a broad set of quality offerings, specific to 22FDX technology. The partner ecosystem allows GF to accelerate its traction in the market and more effectively offer its FDX products and services to a broader range of customers.

The partner program extends the reach of the FD-SOI ecosystem, creating an open framework that allows selected partners to integrate their products or services into a validated, plug-and-play catalog of design solutions. The program encompasses FDX-tailored solutions and services, including:

  • EDA tools that leverage differentiated FD-SOI body-bias features, built into industry-leading design flows;
  • IP design elements and complete libraries, including foundational IP, interfaces and complex IP to enable foundry customers to start designs quickly with validated IP elements;
  • ASIC platforms for a complete 22FDX ASIC offering;
  • Reference solutions and system-level expertise in emerging application areas to speed time-to-market;
  • Outsourced assembly and test (OSAT) solution featuring extensive manufacturing capacity to enable state-of-the art SoC delivery, and;
  • Design consultation and other services dedicated to FDX technology.

“As the FDXcelerator program continues to expand, partners play a critical role in helping to serve our growing number of customers and extend the reach of our FD-SOI ecosystem by providing innovative FDX-tailored solutions and services,” said Alain Mutricy, senior vice president of product management at GF. “These new partners will help drive deeper engagement and enhance technology collaboration, including tighter interlock around quality, qualification and development methodology, enabling us to deliver advanced 22FDX SoC solutions.”

GF is focused on building strong ecosystem partnerships with industry leaders. With the FDXcelerator program, GF’s partners and customers can now benefit from a greater availability of resources to take advantage of the broad adoption and accelerating growth of the FDX market.

To learn more about GF’s FDXcelerator partner program, please visit our Partners page.

Supporting Quotes

“With a fast-evolving IoT and wearables application landscape, ASE is pleased to have been selected by GF as a trusted partner to provide a robust and reliable supply chain for IC assembly and test services, ultimately accelerating time-to-market for our mutual customers. Through this collaboration, ASE has successfully qualified GF’s FDX technology platform using our innovative wire bond, flip chip and wafer level packaging technologies. Going forward, we are excited to further expand our partnership with GF so customers can increasingly draw from our complementary portfolios encompassing foundry and packaging & test capabilities, all of which are being developed to align with emerging market needs.”

Rich Rice, Senior Vice President, Business Development, ASE Group

“Amkor Technology is pleased to join GF’s FDXcelerator partner program. This ecosystem alliance provides an accelerated time-to-market approach for those customers desiring to benefit from the gains in FD-SOI technology in areas where FinFET struggles with complexity and ability to meet pricing objectives. We look forward to supporting the ecosystem alliance and all of our customers seeking to take advantage of the FDX value proposition.”

Ron Huemoeller, Corporate Vice President, WW R&D and Technology Strategy, Amkor Technology

“Infosys helps clients accelerate their time to market with our silicon to systems range of Engineering Services. Being a partner with GF FDXcelerator program, further enhances our silicon engineering offerings and puts us in a unique position to address technology requirements for our semiconductor clients.”

Sudip Singh, SVP & Global Head of Engineering Services, Infosys

“Mentor Graphics is pleased to be working with GF to provide the industry with more process options for chip design. Mentor’s support for the FDXcelerator program includes not only the Calibre® platform, but also participation from our Digital IC Design product offerings, the Analog FastSPICE (AFS)™ and Eldo® analog/mixed-signal platforms, and the Tessent® test suite. The result is a Mentor offering that allows mutual customers to fully leverage the unique capabilities of GF FDX processes, and move from design to silicon with confidence.”

Joe Sawicki, Vice President and General Manager of the Design-to-Silicon Division at Mentor Graphics

“We are pleased to be part of the FDXcelerator program and to broaden our collaboration with GF. Through our participation in this program, our DPA-resistant security cores will be made available as part of the pre-validated ecosystem of 22FDX™ IP. This program helps extend the reach of our best-in-class security cores and accelerates the time-to-market for our customers.”

Dr. Martin Scott, General Manager of the Rambus Security Division

“Sasken has a deep understanding of the software solutions and processes needed to help OEMs keep pace with the evolution of IoT, automotive, industrial and emerging devices technology. With the increasing demand for custom and bespoke system-on-chip (SoC) solutions, reference designs and newer devices, the FDXcelerator program will enable rapid SoC production and speed up time-to-market. Sasken’s excellence in complete product realization, which includes software and hardware, along with GF’s FDXcelerator Partnership Program will enable custom design solutions at a faster pace.”

Rajiv Mody, Chairman, Managing Director, and CEO, Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd.

“Sonics is partnering with GF FDXcelerator program because we share a commitment to lowering energy consumption and increasing performance for our SoC design customers. Sonics’ leadership in network-on-chip (NoC) technologies has made it the industry’s most trusted solution provider for on-chip communications. Now, our new energy processing unit (EPU) technology provides innovative on-chip energy management capabilities at the architecture level where the greatest potential for power savings is available. Sonics is excited to bridge application and silicon level power control leveraging the unique advantages of 22FDX.”

Grant Pierce, CEO of Sonics

“We are very excited to launch our ultra-low power ArcticPro™ eFPGA IP solution on GF’s cost- and power-optimized 22 FDX process. This partnership leverages our nearly three decades of FPGA experience to provide GF customers with a proven ultra-low power solution that dramatically increases the flexibility of a SoC design. This increased flexibility can significantly broaden the market for SoC designs and accelerate time to market for both semiconductor companies and the OEMs that use eFPGA solutions.”

Brian Faith, President and CEO of QuickLogic Corporation

About GF

GF 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, GF makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GF is owned by Mubadala Development Company. For more information, visit www.gf.com.

Contacts:
Erica McGill
GF
(518) 305-5978
erica.mcgill@globalfoundries.com

格芯在高级14nm FinFET工艺技术演示行业领先的56Gbps长距离SerDes

2016年12月13日   经过验证的ASIC IP解决方案将为下一代高速应用提供显着的性能和功率效率

          加利福尼亚州圣克拉拉市， 2016年12月13日      格芯今天宣布，公司的14nm FinFET制程在硅片上表现出真正的长距离56Gbps SerDes性能。作为格芯高性能ASIC产品的一部分，FX-14™的56Gbps SerDes专门设计用以满足要求最苛刻的长距离高性能应用，更能帮助客户改进性能并提高效率表现。

          格芯的56Gbps SerDes内核可以支持PAM4和NRZ信号，具有能力稳定超过35dB的插入损耗，并且在目前最具挑战性的系统环境中去除了使用昂贵且耗电的中继器的必要性。凭借突破性的架构，56Gbps SerDes实现了市场领先的长距离性能，将超过新兴的50Gbps行业标准，如OIF CEI-56G-LR和IEEE 802.3cd。

          FX-14产品提供广泛的高速SerDes（HSS）解决方案，并在公司成熟的，经生产验证的马耳他Fab 8晶圆厂的14nm FinFET（14LPP）平台上制造。同类最佳的高性能56Gbps架构提供业界领先的抖动防噪和均衡能力支持，可在广泛的高速接口标准下提升系统性能，并将为当前及未来的前沿网络，计算和存储应用提供高速连接和低功耗解决方案。

         全球销售高级副总裁Mike Cadigan表示：“这一里程碑表明我们有能力设计出一流的ASIC解决方案，并以最具竞争力的电源和面积在最苛刻的网络和数据中心应用中以56Gbps的速度提供行业领先的性能。“格芯在SerDes的开发和ASIC专业经验方面上有长期的成功经验，加上格芯的14LPP技术，使我们的客户能够通过集成和高性能核心的方式将新的应用及时高效地推向市场。”

          “网络带宽的爆炸性增长继续推动了对业界领先的接口速度和密度的ASIC解决方案的需求”，Linley集团首席分析师Bob Wheeler说。“格芯已经提供了一个复杂的SerDes核心，可以快速地将一流的ASIC解决方案推向市场，从而提高下一代网络设备的带宽容量，可扩展性和电源效率。”

          格芯的FX-14设计系统通过超高性能56Gbps SerDes，PCI Express和多个30Gbps SerDes设计，以及对各种外部存储器接口的支持，扩展了公司HSS的领先地位。 格芯的嵌入式内存解决方案包括业界最快，功耗最低的嵌入式TCAM。与之前的的产品相比，其性能提高了60％，泄漏量减少了80％，并配以密度和性能优化的SRAM。

          客户目前正在使用56Gbps和其他FX-14 SerDes内核在14LPP制程技术上设计先进的ASIC解决方案。格芯目前正在客户渠道展示其56Gbps SerDes，并将于2017年第一季度初开始发布开发板。对于下一代数据通信网络，格芯正在开发先进的电气解决方案，便于移植，以及光学变体，实现在技术上广泛地达到并超过112Gbps。

          欲了解有关格芯高性能ASIC解决方案的更多信息，请访问www.globalfoundries.com/ASIC。

关于格芯

          格芯是提供全方位服务的领先半导体晶圆制造商，为世界上最具创新意识的科技公司提供独特的设计，开发和制造服务。格芯的生产制造业务遍布全球三大洲。格芯使技术和系统转型成为可能，并且帮助客户拥有塑造市场的力量。  格芯是Mubadala Development Company旗下公司。欲了解更多信息，请访问公司官方网站 https://www.globalfoundries.com。

 

联系人：

Jason Gorss

电话：（518）698-7765

jason.gorss@globalfoundries.com

GlobalFoundries Demonstrates Industry-Leading 56Gbps Long-Reach SerDes on Advanced 14nm FinFET Process Technology

Proven ASIC IP solution will enable significant performance and power efficiency improvements for next-generation high-speed applications

Santa Clara, Calif., December 13, 2016 – GlobalFoundries today announced that it has demonstrated true long-reach 56Gbps SerDes performance in silicon on the company’s 14nm FinFET process. As a part of GF’s high-performance ASIC offering, FX-14™, the 56Gbps SerDes is designed for customers seeking to improve power and performance efficiency while handling the most demanding long-reach high-performance applications.

The FX-14 offering provides a broad range of High-Speed SerDes (HSS) solutions and is manufactured on the company’s mature, production-proven 14nm FinFET (14LPP) platform at its Fab 8 facility in Malta, N.Y. The best-in-class architecture for high-performance 56Gbps delivers industry-leading jitter performance and equalization support for enhanced system performance over a wide range of high-speed interface standards and will enable high-speed connectivity and low-power solutions for current and future leading-edge networking, compute and storage applications.

GF’s 56Gbps SerDes core supports both PAM4 and NRZ signaling, with the capability to equalize over 35dB of insertion loss, eliminating the need for expensive and power-hungry repeaters currently employed in the most challenging system environments. With a groundbreaking architecture, the 56Gbps SerDes achieves market-leading long-reach performance that will exceed emerging 50Gbps industry standards such as OIF CEI-56G-LR and IEEE 802.3cd.

“This milestone demonstrates our ability to design best-in-class ASIC solutions and deliver industry-leading performance at 56Gbps in the most demanding networking and datacenter applications at very competitive power and area,” said Mike Cadigan, senior vice president of global sales and business development at GF. “The long history of proven success in SerDes development and ASIC expertise, combined with GF’s 14LPP technology, enables our customers to bring new applications to market in a timely and cost-effective manner through integrated and high-performance cores.”

“The explosive growth in network bandwidth continues to drive the need for ASIC solutions with industry-leading interface speed and density,” said Bob Wheeler, principal analyst at The Linley Group. “GF has delivered a sophisticated SerDes core that enables a fast time to market for best-in-class ASIC solutions that will improve bandwidth capacity, scalability, and power efficiency in next-generation networking equipment.”

GF’s FX-14 design system extends the company’s HSS leadership with an ultra-high performance 56Gbps SerDes, PCI Express, and multiple 30Gbps SerDes designs, as well as support for various external memory interfaces. GF’s embedded memory solutions include the industry’s fastest and lowest power embedded TCAM, which offers up to 60 percent better performance and 80 percent less leakage than its predecessor, along with density and performance-optimized SRAMs.

Customers are presently designing advanced ASIC solutions in 14LPP process technology using the 56Gbps and other FX-14 SerDes cores. GF is currently demonstrating its 56Gbps SerDes in customer channels and will begin shipping development boards in early Q1 2017. For next-generation data communication networks, GF is developing an advanced electrical solution for ease of migration, as well as optical variants, enabling a broad array of technology to achieve 112Gbps and beyond.

About GF

GF 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, GF makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GF is owned by Mubadala Development Company. For more information, visit https://www.gf.com.

Contacts:
Erica McGill
GF
(518) 305-5978
erica.mcgill@globalfoundries.com

MRAM Meets Embedded

By Dave Lammers

Now that magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) has reached the point — after more than two decades of development — where it can be more widely used, the question becomes: How will designers use it? How will MRAM make a difference in the connected systems in mobile, automotive, and IoT? MRAM pioneer Everspin Technologies (Chandler, Ariz.) has been shipping discrete MRAMs made by GF, largely to the cache buffering market, for the past two years, said analyst Tom Coughlin. With speeds rivaling DRAMs, and basically unlimited data retention, Coughlin said MRAM “is the best candidate for replacing existing non-volatile memories in computer architectures.”

Computer Architecture graphic

Drone Graphic

Mobile devices and other systems often have large amounts of SRAM, Coughlin said, and must use time and energy to preserve the memory state when the power is turned off, or a system gets hung up. Because MRAM can be turned off and on with virtually no additional power consumption, system designers can do much more power cycling, turning power off to conserve battery life. There is no energy penalty when a normally-off system comes back to life. “For mobile devices, MRAM enables a lot more power-saving modes, which can help battery-powered systems,” Coughlin said. MRAM’s power-saving capabilities are somewhat surprising, because the early knock on MRAM was that it consumed a lot of power. Over the past 25 years the technology has gone from a thermally-assisted, sandwich-layer MRAM to a perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction, spin-transfer (pMTJ ST-MRAM) architecture. Back to the question: Where does MRAM fit? First, think about how fast the electronics industry is changing and where the opportunities are. New product categories such as augmented reality systems, assisted driving vehicles, drones, and a panoply of IoT technologies, are right in front of us. Dave Eggleston, the vice president of embedded memory at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, points out that most of these new systems depend on fast visual image processing. A car must process image data in real time to avoid a crash, requiring visual image processors and fast memories. “A drone is a great example of where you need lighter weight, and where more energy-efficient circuitry results in longer fly times. How does a drone navigate? By pulling in 3D maps. It has its own vision system, with stored information on topography, to hash real-time information,” Eggleston said. With MRAM, it is possible to trot out some impressive characteristics: 1000x more endurance and 1000x faster write speeds than eFlash; more dense and versatile than SRAM, and an ability to integrate into a CMOS logic process without disturbing the logic transistors. Also, embedded MRAM (eMRAM) is a low-mask-count technology, requiring only four additional mask layers compared with a dozen or more for eFlash at advanced nodes. Early on, Eggleston didn’t envision MRAM being immediately suitable to embedded applications. “I’m not sure I would have told you that ten years ago. But because the magnetic junctions are built in the back end of the line, and are easier to integrate in a logic process, the embedded applications make sense,” he said.

MRAM as Working Memory

To think of eMRAM as simply replacing something else probably is not the best way to think of it, especially in the advanced SoCs needed for emerging markets. It opens new possibilities in the working memories for mobile, IoT, automotive, and other connected applications, Eggleston said. For a complex chip with, say, four graphics processing units and a visual processing unit, an MRAM module could store the code and another block of eMRAM could store data. “By storing data in a non-volatile media, you don’t get rid of SRAM, because eMRAM does not run as fast, but you can shrink down the amount of SRAM and utilize eMRAM as an SRAM-like memory. That makes the design cost effective because eMRAM is denser than SRAM. You get more data for a smaller chip size,” Eggleston said. Software and SoC designers will learn new capabilities, taking advantage of the “persistence” (data retention) characteristics of eMRAM. The cost and performance benefits of eMRAM are what Eggleston calls the “table stakes” needed to make eMRAM a credible alternative to eFlash. But it will be the new capabilities brought by eMRAM that will entice system designers to ask ‘Now, how else can I use it in my chip architecture?’ Coughlin, who earlier worked in technology management at several disk drive companies, said MRAM “definitely has a niche replacing some DRAM and SRAM. It may replace NOR. What we are seeing is almost a Cambrian explosion in the memory field, where NAND flash will continue for mass storage while we see another tier of storage where MRAM or the Intel-Micron phase change memory is used in some applications.” As new applications call for higher performance, and as IoT systems generate much more data, systems designers will use multiple layers of memory. SRAM and DRAM will be complemented by new layers of phase change or resistive memories, and NAND, Coughlin said. “It will be a very interesting time, and we will see how it all shakes out. I do believe MRAM has a solid basis for being part of that menagerie,” he said.

22FDX® eMRAM

Eggleston said GF will continue to extend embedded flash, but GF’s plan is to marry eMRAM with another technology that has mask-count advantages: the 22FDX platform based on fully depleted SOI. The 22FDX-based products will begin to come to market in 2017, and Eggleston said eMRAM becomes available the following year. That timeline contrasts with a normal four or five years to bring NVM to a new logic technology. “For customers that need embedded memory, to bring eMRAM to 22FDX so soon after the (22FDX) logic launch is a huge win. With eMRAM, customers don’t need to recharacterize their designs, because the eMRAM is an extension of the platform, not a platform in and of itself,” he said. Since eMRAM does not shift the underlying transistors, designers can efficiently build a 22FDX-based SoC with the integrated eMRAM that runs on a logic voltage. “eMRAM is straightforward, it integrates incredibly well, and runs on a logic voltage,” he said.

Manufacturing Experience

Other companies have publicly referred to their own MRAM development programs. Coughlin noted that Everspin, which earlier took CMOS logic wafers and added its MRAM to the back end of the line, now works with GF as its full manufacturing partner. The 256-Mbit and, soon, 1 Gigabit-density discrete MRAMs sold by Everspin are made by GF. Coughlin estimates that about 60 million discrete MRAMs have been sold by Everspin thus far.

Source: Everspin, MRAM Leadership Over Three Generations

Source: Everspin, MRAM Leadership Over Three Generations

The years of manufacturing experience GF has gained by working with Everspin have provided key learning in deposition, etch, metrology, and other manufacturing processes that are unique to the multi-layer magnetic stacks within MRAMs. Coughlin said the manufacturing and technology partnership with Everspin has provided GF with a lead in the eMRAM arena. “I think it is a very important, pioneering effort. It has given the partners a lead in actual products, but they must be diligent to keep their lead,” Coughlin said. Eggleston said the spin-transfer MRAM work between GF and Everspin has provided “a lot of learning cycles” over the past two years of running wafers. “By the time we are in production with 22FDX eMRAM we will have been fabricating MRAM for four years. That definitely accelerates the time to market for our embedded solution,” he said.

QuickLogic公司加入格芯的FDXcelerator(TM)合作伙伴计划

SUNNYVALE, CA — (Marketwired) — 11/30/16 — QuickLogic Corporation (NASDAQ: QUIK), a developer of ultra-low power programmable sensor processing, display bridge and programmable logic solutions, today announced that it has joined GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ FDXcelerator™ Partner Program, a collaborative ecosystem that facilitates 22FDX® system-on-chip (SoC) design and reduces time-to-market for customers.

QuickLogic Joins GLOBALFOUNDRIES FDXcelerator(TM) Partner Program

SUNNYVALE, CA — (Marketwired) — 11/30/16— QuickLogic Corporation (NASDAQ: QUIK), a developer of ultra-low power programmable sensor processing, display bridge and programmable logic solutions, today announced that it has joined GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ FDXcelerator™ Partner Program, a collaborative ecosystem that facilitates 22FDX system-on-chip (SoC) design and reduces time-to-market for customers.

“QuickLogic’s partnership with GLOBALFOUNDRIES adds a unique dimension to the FDX program by offering customers ultra-low power embedded FPGA (eFPGA) Intellectual Property, complete software tools and a compiler,” said Brian Faith, president and CEO at QuickLogic Corporation. “This new capability provides users with a high level of design and product flexibility which will help lower costs and allow products to be easily customized to meet various and evolving market requirements.”

FX-14™ Methodology: A Formula for First-Time-Right Success

GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ VP of the ASIC product line shares how the team’s rigorous approach to design implementation and methodology were critical factors in achieving first-time silicon success for a major networking customer. Designing complex ASICs and delivering them on time is no easy task. It requires a powerful combination of design expertise, proven methodologies, and robust process technology. One year ago, with the launch of GF’ first ASIC platform, FX-14®, we gained competitive ground with a new pipeline of ASIC offerings on our 14nm FinFET process technology (14LPP). Since then, we have combined a rich legacy of ASIC expertise from our acquisition of IBM Microelectronics with manufacturing scale and improved access to IP and design tools to enable a new generation of customers to easily adapt their chip designs to the FX-14 offering.

ASIC product line chart

GF has decades of high-speed interconnect, memory, processor, and packaging innovation

Today, I am pleased to share an exciting milestone in our journey: We have achieved first-time-right silicon success for a lead product using our FX-14™ ASIC platform, with a major networking customer (to remain anonymous) bringing up a board in one week and declaring a fully functional ASIC chip. Such an aggressive schedule would be impressive for any product, but this is no ordinary chip—the highly complex design incorporated a high-performance ARM® 64-Bit core, a DDR memory subsystem including DDR memory controllers and PHYs, multiple high-speed backplane SerDes covering a broad range of interface standards, dense 1- and 2-port SRAMs, high-frequency I/Os, and PLLs. How did we accomplish this? A key factor in our approach is the use of an integrated test chip based methodology to rigorously vet our design implementation and methodology well in advance of customer product tapeout. Our ASIC design-for-test features include full scan, IEEE 1149.1 and 1149.6 JTAG boundary scans, and complex IP that meets the IEEE 1687 standard. Additionally, we use a three-phase netlist signoff process with stringent entrance and exit milestone requirements. This type of ASIC platform rigor before product tapeout is essential to enabling first-time customer success. Another key contributor was the maturity of the 14LPP manufacturing technology at our Fab 8 facility in upstate New York, which is in high-volume production on multiple products. By leveraging the FX-14 design platform, the team was able to turn around defect-free parts quickly in order to guarantee first-time-right silicon, while also achieving a power reduction of more than 50 percent over the customer’s previous design. Achieving first-time-right silicon success and fast board bringup for such a complex chip demonstrates the power of GF’ ASIC FX-14 design system. This, along with our proven expertise and design methodology, helps ensure that our customers can design with confidence and achieve a fast path to volume production. Today, we have many customer designs underway in FX-14 across a number of segments, including wired networking, wireless base station, compute, storage, and aerospace and defense applications. We are committed to partnering with these and other customers to help them bring their most complex designs to market.

Capability to support ~25 active chip designs at a time

Anokiwave公司利用格芯的高性能SiGe技术为下一代无线市场开发毫米波产品

San Diego CA, 14 November, 2016:  Anokiwave, Inc., an innovative company providing highly integrated IC solutions for mmWave markets and active antenna based solutions, today announced a collaboration with GLOBALFOUNDRIES to deliver the world’s most advanced Silicon Core IC solutions for the emerging mmWave active antenna markets.

Anokiwave Inc. Leverages GLOBALFOUNDRIES High-Performance SiGe Technologies to Develop Millimeter-Wave Technologies for Next-Generation Wireless Markets

San Diego CA, 14 November, 2016: Anokiwave, Inc., an innovative company providing highly integrated IC solutions for mmWave markets and active antenna based solutions, today announced a collaboration with GLOBALFOUNDRIES to deliver the world’s most advanced Silicon Core IC solutions for the emerging mmWave active antenna markets.

Active antennas have been used in military phase-array radar systems for many years and are now being deployed in record numbers in a wide range of commercial applications. The highly anticipated roll out of 5G infrastructure is expected to utilize active antenna technologies in both base stations as well as handsets.

Executive Perspective: The Beginning of a Virtuous Circle for GLOBALFOUNDRIES FDX™ Technology

By Alain Mutricy

In our highly competitive industry, it is imperative for a company to continually challenge itself to move forward, otherwise it will surely find itself falling behind. At GLOBALFOUNDRIES, this means we are thinking big and embarking on technological paths we have not taken before to provide differentiated value to our customers. Our fully depleted SOI technologies, which we call FDX™, are one example. You’ve heard a lot from us lately about FDX technology. Our 22nm and 12nm FDX processes are ideal for low-power, mobile and highly integrated SoC applications, the sweet spot in the market for many of our customers. We originally developed the 22FDX® technology for IoT systems, which we estimate to be a $50B market opportunity for semiconductors by 2020 (Source: McKinsey & Company,based on volume forecast by Gartner, iSuppli, Strategy Analytics). It delivers the performance of 14/16nm FinFET technology on demand leveraging a software-controlled back-bias technology—yet it also supports ultra-low power systems and an ultra-low-leakage library for battery-operated IoT solutions. The process technology has been designed to integrate high-performance digital libraries with high-performance analog and RF circuits. First IP and silicon implementations have demonstrated the fact that beyond IoT, the 22FDX platform is ideal for low-to mid-range smartphone single-chip integration. Also, with the 22FDX platform we have broken the old paradigm of semiconductor technology development, which went as follows: the most advanced node would be developed for high-performance digital logic implementation. Then, more or less two years later, analog and RF would complement the process toolkit, as leading-edge performance customers were already moving to the next digital node. Finally, add another two years and you may have the ability to integrate non-volatile-memory (NVM). Which means, of course, that systems which would benefit from NVM integration could only integrate logic IP with four-year old performance capabilities. The 22FDX platform enables our customers to break free of this constraint, and to design intelligent, fully integrated (e.g., lowest power and system cost), and connected (e.g. with RF systems on-chip) systems. We see customers working on 28nm today, but also 55nm and 40nm customers (with RF and/or NVM) considering switching directly to 22FDX to leverage this competitive advantage for themselves. We’re already working with scores of customers on FDX technology, and a good number are in the early prototyping phase. While our unique FDX technology is the foundation of our offerings, we have also challenged ourselves to find ways to help customers bring their FDX-based products to market as easily and as quickly as possible. In particular, to make available tools and IP that enable customers to leverage the software-controlled body-bias capabilities of our FDX technology. To do this, we have developed the FDXcelerator Partner Program. It is a collaborative effort that provides customers with the comprehensive support and resources they need to get FDX-based SoCs to market as fast as possible. Think of it as an entire ecosystem of pre-qualified, committed expert partners and suppliers who, along with GF, stand ready to provide whatever customers may need to create and bring to market innovative SoC solutions quickly and cost-effectively. Such strong, strategic partnerships are crucial for any business, large or small. For example, let me make a comparison with something on the personal side. More than 15 years ago, I started a business within Texas Instruments aimed at developing microprocessor solutions for cellular phones, with the early vision that cell phones would become “smart,” have high-level operating systems, the ability to download applications and share media, and larger screens. We called it the OMAP processor. (How this world has changed in these past 15 years!!!) Despite a strong technology advantage versus the competition, with much more performance for multimedia and graphic, at ultra-low-power, OMAP in the early days represented a new type of dual-core solution to program. Our customers were viewing a competitor’s leading microprocessor solution as a safer bet, easier to implement, although the technology could not provide the needed battery life that would make smartphones become a mainstream technology. We launched a similar ecosystem network called the OMAP Technology Center program, to break the design barriers for our customers by bringing the best-of-the-best technology partners with optimized software solutions and tools to OMAP technology. In no time, our partners adapted their resources, skills, tools and their multimedia software or base-port software solutions to support the OMAP platform and take advantage of the emergence of the smart phone market with OMAP, which became quickly the market leader. OMAP customers were all winning in their markets, as they could develop at an accelerated pace. OMAP Technology Centers—our partners—grew very fast and shared in the success. So, back to our topic here: While we estimate that 22FDX SoC design complexity and the level of effort required is much lower than that of FinFET technology, designing with the full leverage of the software-controlled body-bias is a new approach to SOC design. Not complex, but different. (FinFET design complexity is about twice that of 28nm, according to a Gartner study.) We couldn’t have done it so well nor so quickly without expert help, which is precisely the goal of our FDXcelerator Program here. So far, we’ve announced seven world-class program partners and there is a backlog of others who want to join. Each partner we’ve evaluated and selected has committed to offer our customers specific, dedicated resources, and the program now encompasses:

  • Tools (EDA) – Modules that leverage differentiated FD-SOI body-bias features, built into industry-leading design flows
  • Design elements (IP) – Complete libraries, including foundational IP, interfaces and complex IP to enable foundry customers to start designs quickly with validated IP elements
  • Platforms (ASIC)
  • Reference solutions – System-level expertise in emerging application areas to speed time-to-market
  • Packaging and test solutions (OSAT) – Enabling state-of the art SOC delivery
  • Other resources – Design consultation and other services dedicated to FDX technology

This all adds up to unique benefits and added-value that is only available with FDX technology from GF. I see the FDXcelerator Partner Program as a key toolbox for our customers to accelerate their time-to-market. It is the catalyst for a virtuous circle in the use of FDX technology, whereby the support we offer encourages more customers to migrate to FDX technology, and their ideas and participation in turn stimulate the ecosystem to grow further, which in turn draws in more customers, and so on. We are simultaneously creating the opportunity for business success for our partners and time-to-market advantage for our customers, by enabling them to have solutions and resources at hand to increase their design productivity on FDX technology. It’s exciting to be at the beginning of such a transformative effort. I’m proud to be a valued partner with our customers, and I can’t wait to see them win in the marketplace with our technology! Excluding “classic internet devices” such as laptops and smartphones. Also excludes automotive applications. Rough preliminary estimate with indicative split by device type. Integration of simple devices with communication features and memory in SoCs assumed and accounted for in communications category, embedded memory under logic.