Globalfoundries ramps up 14nm production

Posted on Monday, April 06 2015 @ 14:17 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
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Mubadala Development Company, the investment vehicle owned by the Abu Dhabi government that owns GlobalFoundries, announced its foundry has kicked off production of 14nm chips. GlobalFoundries licenses the 14LPE (low-power early) and the 14LPP (low-power plus) technology from Samsung and is now ramping production for customers at its Fab 8 in Malta, New York.

It's unknown who GlobalFoundries' 14nm customers are. It could be some smartphone chip designers and potentially also AMD's ARM chips.
“GlobalFoundries announced a strategic collaboration with Samsung to deliver capacity at 14nm, one of the industry’s most advanced nodes, as Fab 8 in Malta, New York began ramping production for customers,” a statement by Mubadala reads.

The 14LPE (low-power early) and the 14LPP (low-power plus) technologies were developed by Samsung Electronics and licensed to GlobalFoundries. The manufacturing processes use FinFET transistors, but rely on back-end-of-line (BEOL) interconnects of 20nm manufacturing technology. While the two fabrication technologies do not significantly reduce costs of chips compared to the previous-generation node, they allow to boost performance of 20nm chips by 20 per cent at the same power or cut power consumption by 35 per cent without decreasing their performance or complexity.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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