GlobalFoundries Stops All 7nm Development: Opts To Focus on Specialized Processes
by Anton Shilov & Ian Cutress on August 27, 2018 4:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Semiconductors
- CPUs
- AMD
- GlobalFoundries
- 7nm
- 7LP
GlobalFoundries Press Release
GlobalFoundries Reshapes Technology Portfolio to Intensify Focus on Growing Demand for Differentiated Offerings
Semiconductor manufacturer realigns leading-edge roadmap to meet client need and establishes wholly-owned subsidiary to design custom ASICs.
Santa Clara, Calif., August 27, 2018 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced an important step in its transformation, continuing the trajectory launched with the appointment of Tom Caulfield as CEO earlier this year. In line with the strategic direction Caulfield has articulated, GF is reshaping its technology portfolio to intensify its focus on delivering truly differentiated offerings for clients in high-growth markets.
GF is realigning its leading-edge FinFET roadmap to serve the next wave of clients that will adopt the technology in the coming years. The company will shift development resources to make its 14/12nm FinFET platform more relevant to these clients, delivering a range of innovative IP and features including RF, embedded memory, low power and more. To support this transition, GF is putting its 7nm FinFET program on hold indefinitely and restructuring its research and development teams to support its enhanced portfolio initiatives. This will require a workforce reduction, however a significant number of top technologists will be redeployed on 14/12nm FinFET derivatives and other differentiated offerings.
“Demand for semiconductors has never been higher, and clients are asking us to play an ever-increasing role in enabling tomorrow’s technology innovations,” Caulfield said. “The vast majority of today’s fabless customers are looking to get more value out of each technology generation to leverage the substantial investments required to design into each technology node. Essentially, these nodes are transitioning to design platforms serving multiple waves of applications, giving each node greater longevity. This industry dynamic has resulted in fewer fabless clients designing into the outer limits of Moore’s Law. We are shifting our resources and focus by doubling down on our investments in differentiated technologies across our entire portfolio that are most relevant to our clients in growing market segments.”
In addition, to better leverage GF’s strong heritage and significant investments in ASIC design and IP, the company is establishing its ASIC business as a wholly-owned subsidiary, independent from the foundry business. A relevant ASIC business requires continued access to leading-edge technology. This independent ASIC entity will provide clients with access to alternative foundry options at 7nm and beyond, while allowing the ASIC business to engage with a broader set of clients, especially the growing number of systems companies that need ASIC capabilities and more manufacturing scale than GF can provide alone.
GF is intensifying investment in areas where it has clear differentiation and adds true value for clients, with an emphasis on delivering feature-rich offerings across its portfolio. This includes continued focus on its FDXTM platform, leading RF offerings (including RF SOI and high-performance SiGe), analog/mixed signal, and other technologies designed for a growing number of applications that require low power, real-time connectivity, and on-board intelligence. GF is uniquely positioned to serve this burgeoning market for “connected intelligence,” with strong demand in new areas such as autonomous driving, IoT and the global transition to 5G.
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haukionkannel - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
Zen2 is in no trouble. Vegas most likely and APUs were planned to use Global foundaries, so those may be delayed one or two years. Or They will stay in 14nm for some years. No big deal.GreenReaper - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
It kind of is? Heat and power use are bad in themselves and limit the frequency you can reach; die size also relates closely to cost. For APUs, you don't need more cores, but increasing the number of compute and rendering units could be the difference between reaching 4K or not.Sure, you can make that die on 14nm, but you will pay for it one way or another. Maybe thanks to size or power it doesn't fit into an AM4 socket at all, and you need to go to TR4.
OwCH - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
This is actually a really smart move.To all the people calling for a move away from Si - Tell that to Intel, Samsung and TSMC, as those three will be the ones leading development of new nodes. For the vast majority of tech products, we don't need those smaller/faster nodes. Think IoT and normal household tech. The bulk of tech. The need for computing power in a single chip isn't huge for that market. For that market we need a reliable, efficient, profitable and cheap node. 40nm, 22nm and 14nm can do just that. GF fabs them all. Smart move.
spronkey - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
Smart short term move, but increasing the chances they'll fade into oblivion as their tech can't compete in the longer term. 7nm will be extremely appealing to IoT in 5-10 years once it's reasonably cheap.Doesn't really sound like they had a choice though.
BurntMyBacon - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
Just because they are focusing on non-bleeding edge nodes doesn't mean they won't revisit 7nm when it is no longer bleeding edge. 7nm fabrication will likely be cheaper by the time 3nm is ramping up. At the very least, they could skip DUV with quadruple masking and go straight to EUV allowing them to make more wafer starts with the same amount of production space.zodiacfml - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
Right. They don't have a choice. It is quite puzzling they are withdrawing quite late.I think there is a change with their competitors. It seems that TSMC must have been giving better prices for contracts. It also seems that TSMC can serve all customers as long they are willing to wait.
In short, GF lost some potential customers making the latest node not worth it
MananDedhia - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
It is sad to read this news - i worked at Fab 8 for 3 years and know the struggles involved in developing bleeding edge processes first hand, especially at the brutal timelines that are demanded from the market. Hopefully people affected by this action manage to find work elsewhere.Crazyguy9 - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
Good points by the commenters, but I think many miss the main point. Yes, we all know and have known how expensive new nodes are to develop. And we all have known how crazy it can be to chase Moore’s Law. BUT, so did Global. They must have had a business plan when they launched 7nm two years ago. They knew how much capital it would take, how much it would cost to make a wafer, and how much revenue they could make. They spent billions of dollars on development and tools like EUV over the last two years. According to their press releases they should be ready for production this year. So why do you cancel it now ??? Something doesn’t add up. Think of how much it must have cost to outfit the fab for EUV tools alone.Yes there is a lot of demand for older nodes like 28nm. But 28nm was the end of the line for planer devices and finfet arrival was delayed several years. In contrast, 14nm is first generation finfet and probably not a good place to park a fab.
So there must be more to this story than just “we woke up and discovered how expensive these new nodes are”. Something is very amiss at Global to get this far down the road, then cancel.
V900 - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
It’s Global Foundries...Hardly the best managed company out there, and not exactly known for their sterling leadership and flawless execution.
They also had huge problems transitioning to previous nodes.
Having said that, it’s kinda like a gambler who already lost his paycheck, and is about to throw the deed to his house on the table.
YES, GF already lost 5-7 billion dollars researching 7nm, investing in EUV tools etc.
But continuing the move to 7nm would have cost them an additional 10-20 billion dollars.
And that investment might never have paid for itself, since GF in 5 years might have been stuck with a 7 nm fab that’s too slow for the leading edge (Apple, Qualcomm etc.) but too expensive for everyone else compared with a cheap “good enough” 14nm or 22nm fab.
del42sa - Thursday, August 30, 2018 - link
no it would cost them a lot of less :It would have cost GF $2-4 billion to ramp up the 40-50,000 wafers/month capacity needed to have a chance of making a return on the node. “
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=133363...