Globalfoundries reveals its 28nm plans

AMD SPINOFF Globalfoundries has been telling the world about its plans for development of 28nm technology.

Speaking at its first conference, the semiconductor chip outfit announced the addition of new process technology based on its 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) technology and revealed for the first time its manufacturing timeline for the 22/20nm process node.

Gregg Bartlett, SVP of technology and research and development at Globalfoundries said that the plan is to rule the world, or at least that bit of it that is involved with the chip foundry industry.

He said that Globalfoundries ramped to volume production at the 45/40nm generation well ahead of all other foundries and it is poised to maintain this leadership at 32/28nm, with plans to extend this to the 22/20nm node.

This week Globalfoundries introduced a new technology to address the growing market for smart mobile devices and high-performance processors requiring more than 2GHz of processing power.

Scheduled to begin risk production in Q4 2011, the 28nm High Performance Plus (HPP) technology provides a performance boost of as much as 10 per cent over the company's current 28nm High Performance process.

It can offer optional ultra-low leakage transistors and SRAMs that extend the application range from high performance into the low power range, Bartlett said.

A RF CMOS offering also is available, which means that it will be targeted towards the next generation of high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

The new 28nm-HPP technology will be added to the existing 28nm High Performance (HP) technology, which is targeted at high-performance wired applications and the Super Low Power (SLP) technology for power-sensitive mobile and consumer applications.

All 28nm technologies feature Globalfoundries' Gate First approach to HKMG. The outfit claims that this is superior to other 28nm HKMG methods.

Globalfoundries is currently accepting designs for its 28nm technologies. Several designs have already been silicon-validated, and many more product and IP test chips are being validated at Globalfoundries' Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

Bartlett said that Globalfoundries is well on its way to delivering 22/20nm technology to customers for product introduction in 2013.

The 20nm technology will be used in High Performance (HP) technology designed for wired applications such as servers and media processors and 20nm Super Low Power (SLP) technology designed for power-sensitive mobile uses.

Globalfoundries also will have access to a 22nm Super High Performance (SHP) technology designed for devices requiring the utmost in performance.

The 22/20nm technologies are planned to be a full node shrink from 32/28nm, and will use next-generation HKMG technology and strained silicon engineering to enable area and die cost scaling. Test chip shuttles for customers will begin running in Fab 1 in the second half of next year.

If that is not enough acronyms for you, on Thursday the outfit added that it has taped-out a qualification vehicle based on the ARM Cortex A9 dual processor. This is an industry first on 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) technology.

This Technology Qualification Vehicle (TQV) means that Globalfoundries can improve its 28nm HKMG process for customer designs based on the next-generation dual-core ARM processor.

The jointly developed TQV reached the tapeout stage in August at Globalfoundries' Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany and is a part of the strategic collaboration with ARM announced last year. Silicon results are expected back from the fab later this year.

Mojy Chian, SVP of design enablement at Globalfoundries claimed that this is a "significant milestone" on the road to high-volume 28nm manufacturing. µ