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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RSAUser - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
Their 7nm is probably slightly better than Intel 10nm.Think someone linked some papers a while back stating that TSMC and Samsung have likely already overtaken or are soon to overtake Intel.
eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
I actually agree with the notion that x nm doesn't equal x nm when comparing different processes. However, Intel's 10 nm process has (continues to have?) had many teething problems, and scale-up has been delayed and apparently almost painful. My thought was that this is a potential chance for Intel to buy valuable IP, expertise and basically new state-of-the-art equipment at bargain basement prices. I know that they like to do everything as much in-house as possible, but Intel has made large acquisitions in recent years if they thought they would add to their bottom line.Kevin G - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
1) Is the most likely scenario. Everyone is having problems as EUV is late for everyone and the alternatives are quad patterning which adds costs and slows production. It is a bag of hurt. 5 nm was looking like it could only be developed by masochists.2) Not improbable was GF was never that aggressive with their roadmap. The problem is that the other players hit delays so the reality likely was that GF was never going to be that far behind. Perception is everything. Spinning off 7 nm production would still require customers to come forward. This is a clear chicken and the egg scenario where the customers decided to roost else where.
As for other players purchasing GF, it is unlikely as companies like Intel actually have an excess of capacity for logic right now (DRAM and flash are slightly different which are higher utilized). The exception as noted would be keeping the US fabs in the Trusted Foundry Program. Certain stipulations had to be adhered to for GF to inherent those as part of the purchase of IBM's fabs. As such, there are likely conditions that still exist for the sale of those fabs. If another member of the Trusted Foundry Program just wanted those fabs, it would be far easier to change ownership.
bourbon_high - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
Rumours last year said that the previous CEO Mr. Sanjay Jha and his team wanted to stop investing in 7 because the IBM led management team in Malta was behind and struggling. the current management team it seems was against 22fdx but pushed for 7nm. now after failing to deliver, the same management team under pressure from their investors and AMD have given up and seems to be calling it a strategy shift. Billions more wasted is what is said. GF needs new management, not dead weight IBM'ers that are slow to move if at all.rahvin - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
The article clearly paints it as your number 2 scenario. When they did the math on buildout and customers they realized they'd loose money so they bagged the whole thing and decided to focus on their current process.Keep in mind there is still a ton of stuff fabbed on older process nodes, it can in fact by quite lucrative. With AMD unbound on manufacturing it also free's GloFo from having to spend billions building and upgrading Fabs. Given the rising costs in fabrication as they move up each node the market is likely to consolidate further and we could even see TSMC or Samsung drop out of the race due to the costs. Fab prices have gotten to the point of breaking budgets for even huge companies, there are very few companies that can afford to build a $20 billion EUV fab.
levizx - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
You can't "spin-off" a process with NO FAB to produce it.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, August 28, 2018 - link
Actually, you can, if you have a fab or two that can house the equipment and the people (the expertise) who are now being "made redundant" as the the British say. Processes have been moved ("migrated") from one fab to another in the past, although it can be a major pain in the derriere to do so.FullmetalTitan - Thursday, August 30, 2018 - link
Bigger issue then would be cost. Fab tool-in is expensive, even with retrofit work.Kevin G - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
I wonder how this plays out for the Trusted Foundry programs that GF inherited from IBM. They allegedly had several contracts open with three letter agencies for specialized parts. Outside of that, they still provide some radiation hardened nodes as well (though far from state of the art). I'm not sure how profitable, if at all, things would be catering to those types of customers. While not high in volume, those due produce a nice margin. While the number bleeding edge nodes within the Trusted Foundry program is slim, there are plenty of players able to fab using older nodes. As the rest of the industry marches toward 7 nm and beyond, those other small time fabs will catch up.While IBM's contract with GF runs out at the end of this year, GF did develop a 12 nm FD-SOI process that looked like it was being used for a POWER9+ revision. Still those products would have been initially planned for a late 2019 release date.
btmedic04 - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
My question in all of this is how will the fallout of Glofo abandoning 7nm affect AMD's 2nd gen Ryzen/Epyc processors