GLOBALFOUNDRIES Introduces 12LP+ FinFET Solution for Cloud and Edge AI Applications

Inno­va­ti­ve solu­ti­on based on GF’s most advan­ced Fin­FET plat­form offers best-in-class per­for­mance, key new fea­tures to address evol­ving AI requi­re­ments, com­pel­ling eco­no­mics and indus­try-lea­ding phy­si­cal IP from Arm

San­ta Cla­ra, Calif., Sep­tem­ber 24, 2019 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF), the world’s lea­ding spe­cial­ty foundry, announ­ced today at its Glo­bal Tech­no­lo­gy Con­fe­rence the avai­la­bi­li­ty of 12LP+, an inno­va­ti­ve new solu­ti­on for AI trai­ning and infe­rence appli­ca­ti­ons. 12LP+ offers chip desi­gners a best-in-class com­bi­na­ti­on of per­for­mance, power and area, along with a set of key new fea­tures, a matu­re design and pro­duc­tion eco­sys­tem, cost-effi­ci­ent deve­lo­p­ment and fast time-to-mar­ket for high-growth cloud and edge AI applications.

Deri­ved from GF’s exis­ting 12nm Lea­ding Per­for­mance (12LP) plat­form, GF’s new 12LP+ pro­vi­des eit­her a 20% increase in per­for­mance or a 40% reduc­tion in power requi­re­ments over the base 12LP plat­form, plus a 15% impro­ve­ment in logic area sca­ling. A key fea­ture is a high-speed, low-power 0.5V SRAM bit cell that sup­ports the fast, power-effi­ci­ent shut­t­ling of data bet­ween pro­ces­sors and memo­ry, an important requi­re­ment for AI appli­ca­ti­ons in the com­pu­ting and wired infra­struc­tu­re markets.

Other key fea­tures of 12LP+ that enable cli­ents to capi­ta­li­ze on AI mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties are a design refe­rence packa­ge for AI appli­ca­ti­ons and design/technology co-deve­lo­p­ment (DTCO) ser­vices, both of which allow cli­ents to look at AI cir­cuit designs from a holi­stic per­spec­ti­ve in order to achie­ve lower power bud­gets and redu­ced cos­ts. Ano­ther key fea­ture is a new inter­po­ser for 2.5D packa­ges, which faci­li­ta­tes the inte­gra­ti­on of high-band­width memo­ry with pro­ces­sors for fast, power-effi­ci­ent data processing. 

The 12LP+ solu­ti­on makes use of Arm® Arti­san® phy­si­cal IP as well as POPIP for AI appli­ca­ti­ons, deve­lo­ped for GF by Arm. Both solu­ti­ons from Arm will also be appli­ed to GF’s ori­gi­nal 12LP platform. 

AI, auto­mo­ti­ve and high-end con­su­mer mobi­li­ty are just a few of the gro­wing appli­ca­ti­ons crea­ting urgent demand for high-per­for­mance SoCs,” said Gus Yeung, gene­ral mana­ger and fel­low, Phy­si­cal Design Group, Arm. “Sup­port­ed by the wide­ly-used Arm Arti­san phy­si­cal IP and advan­ced pro­ces­sor designs, GLOBALFOUNDRIES12LP+ will help desi­gners deli­ver pro­ducts that mone­ti­ze this demand easi­ly, quick­ly and cost-effectively.”

The roll­out of 12LP+ is a result of GF’s stra­tegy to pro­vi­de cli­ents with dif­fe­ren­tia­ted solu­ti­ons that extend the abili­ty to sca­le designs with no dis­rup­ti­on to work flows very cost-effi­ci­ent­ly com­pared to alter­na­ti­ves,” said Micha­el Men­di­ci­no, vice pre­si­dent of Digi­tal Tech­no­lo­gy Solu­ti­ons at GF. “For exam­p­le, as an advan­ced 12nm tech­no­lo­gy, our 12LP+ solu­ti­on alre­a­dy offers cli­ents a majo­ri­ty of the per­for­mance and power advan­ta­ges they would expect to gain from a 7nm pro­cess, but their NRE (non-recur­ring engi­nee­ring) cos­ts will avera­ge only about half as much, a signi­fi­cant savings. Addi­tio­nal­ly, becau­se the 12nm node has been run­ning lon­ger and is much more matu­re, cli­ents will be able to tape-out quick­ly and take advan­ta­ge of the gro­wing demand for AI technology.” 

The 12LP+ PDK is available now and GF is alre­a­dy working with seve­ral cli­ents. Tape outs are expec­ted in the second half of 2020 and volu­me pro­duc­tion is set for 2021 from GF’s Fab 8 in Mal­ta, New York.

About GF

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) is the world’s lea­ding spe­cial­ty foundry. We deli­ver dif­fe­ren­tia­ted fea­ture-rich solu­ti­ons that enable our cli­ents to deve­lop inno­va­ti­ve pro­ducts for high-growth mar­ket seg­ments. GF pro­vi­des a broad ran­ge of plat­forms and fea­tures with a uni­que mix of design, deve­lo­p­ment and fabri­ca­ti­on ser­vices. With an at-sca­le manu­fac­tu­ring foot­print span­ning the U.S., Euro­pe and Asia, 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.