Globalfoundries, the company that boasts itself as the world’s first ever full-service semiconductor foundry with a global footprint, announced on Thursday the rollout of its next-generation 12nm FD-SOI process technology.
The company has stated that the product tape outs can be expected in another two years from now.
Dubbed 12FDX, the 12nm fully depleted silicon on insulator process technology is the successor to Globalfoundries’ 22FDX technology.
12FDX, according to the company, will deliver 10nm FinFET performance with much more efficient power consumption and lower overall cost compared to 16nm FinFET. Better still, it can deliver that performance while simultaneously maintaining unprecedented versatility.
The node is compatible with advanced logic circuits, as well as radio frequency, analog, and embedded memory.
“When 22FDX first came out from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, I saw some game-changing features. The real-time tradeoffs in power and performance could not be ignored by those needing to differentiate their designs,” said G. Dan Hutcheson, chairman and CEO of VLSI Research.
“Now with its new 12FDX offering, GLOBALFOUNDRIES is showing a clear commitment to delivering a roadmap for this technology — especially for IoT and Automotive, which are the most disruptive forces in the market today. GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ FD-SOI technologies will be a critical enabler of this disruption.”
Worth noting, Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology has always been a hot favorite for both AMD and IBM for a long time now. This is primarily due to the fact that Silicon on Insulator brings along a superior frequency scaling and power characteristics if compared one-on-one to standard bulk technology.