San­ta Cla­ra, Calif., June 13, 2017 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announ­ced the avai­la­bi­li­ty of its 7nm Lea­ding-Per­for­mance (7LP) Fin­FET semi­con­duc­tor tech­no­lo­gy, deli­ve­ring a 40 per­cent gene­ra­tio­nal per­for­mance boost to meet the needs of appli­ca­ti­ons such as pre­mi­um mobi­le pro­ces­sors, cloud ser­vers and net­wor­king infra­struc­tu­re. Design kits are available now, and the first cus­to­mer pro­ducts based on 7LP are expec­ted to launch in the first half of 2018, with volu­me pro­duc­tion ram­ping in the second half of 2018.

In Sep­tem­ber 2016, GF announ­ced plans to deve­lop its own 7nm Fin­FET tech­no­lo­gy lever­aging the company’s unmat­ched heri­ta­ge of manu­fac­tu­ring high-per­for­mance chips. Thanks to addi­tio­nal impro­ve­ments at both the tran­sis­tor and pro­cess levels, the 7LP tech­no­lo­gy is excee­ding initi­al per­for­mance tar­gets and expec­ted to deli­ver grea­ter than 40 per­cent more pro­ces­sing power and twice the area sca­ling than the pre­vious 14nm Fin­FET tech­no­lo­gy. The tech­no­lo­gy is now rea­dy for cus­to­mer designs at the company’s lea­ding-edge Fab 8 faci­li­ty in Sara­to­ga Coun­ty, N.Y.

“Our 7nm Fin­FET tech­no­lo­gy deve­lo­p­ment is on track and we are see­ing strong cus­to­mer trac­tion, with mul­ti­ple pro­duct tapeouts plan­ned in 2018,” said Gregg Bart­lett, seni­or vice pre­si­dent of the CMOS Busi­ness Unit at GF. “And, while dri­ving to com­mer­cia­li­ze 7nm, we are actively deve­lo­ping next-gene­ra­ti­on tech­no­lo­gies at 5nm and bey­ond to ensu­re our cus­to­mers have access to a world-class road­map at the lea­ding edge.”

GF also con­ti­nues to invest in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment for next-gene­ra­ti­on tech­no­lo­gy nodes. In clo­se col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with its part­ners IBM and Sam­sung, the com­pa­ny announ­ced a 7nm test chip in 2015, fol­lo­wed by the recent announce­ment of the industry’s first demons­tra­ti­on of a func­tio­ning 5nm chip using sili­con nano­s­heet tran­sis­tors. GF is explo­ring a ran­ge of new tran­sis­tor archi­tec­tures to enable its cus­to­mers to deli­ver the next era of con­nec­ted intelligence.

GF’s 7nm Fin­FET tech­no­lo­gy lever­a­ges the company’s volu­me manu­fac­tu­ring expe­ri­ence with its 14nm Fin­FET tech­no­lo­gy, which began pro­duc­tion in ear­ly 2016 at Fab 8. Sin­ce then, the com­pa­ny has deli­ver­ed “first-time-right” designs for a broad ran­ge of customers.

To acce­le­ra­te the 7LP pro­duc­tion ramp, GF is inves­t­ing in new pro­cess equip­ment capa­bi­li­ties, inclu­ding the addi­ti­on of the first two EUV litho­gra­phy tools in the second half of this year. The initi­al pro­duc­tion ramp of 7LP will be based on an opti­cal litho­gra­phy approach, with migra­ti­on to EUV litho­gra­phy when the tech­no­lo­gy is rea­dy for volu­me manufacturing.

Sup­port­ing Quotes

“We are very plea­sed with the lea­ding-edge tech­no­lo­gy that GF is brin­ging with its advan­ced 7nm pro­cess tech­no­lo­gy. Our col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve work with GF is focu­sed on crea­ting high-per­for­mance pro­ducts that will dri­ve more immersi­ve and instinc­ti­ve com­pu­ting experiences.”

Mark Paper­mas­ter, CTO and seni­or vice pre­si­dent of tech­no­lo­gy and engi­nee­ring, AMD.

“IBM is com­mit­ted to mee­ting the rising demands of cogni­ti­ve sys­tems and cloud com­pu­ting. GF’s lea­ding per­for­mance in 7LP pro­cess tech­no­lo­gy, reflec­ting our joint Rese­arch col­la­bo­ra­ti­on, will allow IBM Power and Main­frame sys­tems to push bey­ond limi­ta­ti­ons to pro­vi­de high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting solu­ti­ons while aggres­si­ve­ly pur­suing 5nm to advan­ce our lea­der­ship for years to come.”

Tom Ros­a­mi­lia, Seni­or Vice Pre­si­dent, IBM Systems

“While not the only important fac­tor in a suc­cessful tech­no­lo­gy, tran­sis­tor geo­me­try still plays a part. This is an important fab mile­stone on the jour­ney to 7nm volu­me pro­duc­tion, demons­t­ra­ting that GF’s pro­cess is matu­re enough to start working on real cus­to­mer pro­duct designs. At the same time, the com­pa­ny is alre­a­dy making solid pro­gress toward deli­ve­ring 5nm and bey­ond. The­re are only a handful of com­pa­nies in the world capa­ble of dri­ving this type of lea­ding-edge inno­va­ti­on, and GF is cle­ar­ly sta­king its cla­im as a mem­ber of this eli­te group.”

Patrick Moor­head, Pre­si­dent & Prin­ci­pal Ana­lyst, Moor Insights & Strategy

“GF con­ti­nues to demons­tra­te America’s lea­der­ship in advan­ced tech­no­lo­gy. If they con­ti­nue this pro­gress on 7nm, GF will be the first com­pa­ny to leapfrog a full node. Ever­yo­ne that’s tried it in the past has fai­led well befo­re this point in the pro­cess. It’s a com­ple­te­ly new stra­te­gic approach for extra­c­ting value from Moore’s Law. By biting the bul­let and skip­ping 10nm, GF ope­ned up the tech­ni­cal band­width to attack 7nm head-on. Others have been divi­ding their resour­ces and going for half- or even quarter-nodes.”

Dan Hut­che­son, CEO and Chair­man of VLSI Research

About GF:

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