GlobalFoundries planning 22nm FD-SOI volume production by late 2016

GlobalFoundries shared new information about its FD-SOI (Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator) process technology at a CEA-Leti-sponsored FD-SOI workshop in Grenoble, France.

Gerd Teepe, director and design engineering at GlobalFoundries, said the firm is working on 22nm FD-SOI technology right now, the plan is to quality the process by early 2016 and start volume production towards the end of 2016.

With 22nm FD-SOI, GlobalFoundries is aiming at high-volume SoC chips. The foundry claims this process delivers "almost" 14nm FinFET performance at "almost" 28nm cost. Pressed about more details, Teepe explained 22nm FD-SOI uses STMicroelectronics’ 14nm FD-SOI in the frontend and 28nm FD-SOI in the backend:

Asked about what the company’s 22nm FD-SOI process entails, Teepe explained, “We are using STMicroelectronics’ 14nm FD-SOI in our frontend, while using 28nm FD-SOI in the backend.”

GlobalFoundries appears to believe that their initial FD-SOI customers will be designers of big volume SoCs. While those customers need to push the performance of their SoCs, what they really need is a “good price,” said Teepe. The promise of GlobalFoundries’ 22nm FD-SOI solution, he concluded, is to offer his customers “almost 14nm FinFET performance at almost 28nm cost.”