28nm

General Description

GLOBALFOUNDRIES‘ industry-leading 28nm Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) design platform is based on high-k metal-gate (HKMG) technology. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is driving the global standard for HKMG with seven world-leading semiconductor product companies including Freescale, IBM, Infineon, NEC, ST, Samsung, and Toshiba. This standard is superior in both scalability (die size, design compatibility, performance) and manufacturability relative to the current offerings of other foundries. It utilizes a "Gate-First" approach that shares the process flow, design flexibility, design elements and benefits of all previous nodes based upon poly SiON gate stacks. This reflects our commitment to providing a total solution for foundry customers in design enablement and IP, process technology and packaging solutions that flow from our extensive global resources and alliances.

Features

The technology is available in super low-power (SLP) and high performance (HP) technology offerings, to cater to the complex requirements of next-generation SoC's.

The 28nm high performance (HP) and super low power (SLP) technologies are based on bulk silicon substrates, and are designed for a wide variety of applications from high performance such as graphics and wired networking to low power wireless mobile applications that require long battery lifetime.

Both HP and SLP utilize high k metal gate (HKMG) technology for superior control of the channel with high on currents and low leakage current. Scheduled for risk production after the ramp of 32nm, 28nm is the second technology for high volume production at GLOBALFOUNDRIES that utilizes HKMG.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES' HKMG enables full scaling from 40nm in area and performance; i.e., 28nm delivers twice the gate density of industry standard 40nm processes and an SRAM cell size shrink of more than 50 percent (cell size of 0.120 square micrometers for dense single port). 28nm transistors offer up to 40% higher performance than 40nm at comparable leakage with up to 50% lower energy per switch and 50% lower static power. As a leading manufacturer of x86 CPU's, GLOBALFOUNDRIES well understands the constraints and trade-offs of performance, power and area. The major competitor's offerings have limitations in the breadth of transistor and Vt offerings versus a wider variety from GLOBALFOUNDRIES as described below.

28nm High Performance (HP) and High Performance Plus (HPP)

28nm-HP targets high performance and general purpose applications such as graphics, game consoles, storage, consumer electronics, and wired networking. 28nm-HP supports low, standard, and high Vt options with an operating voltage of 0.85V. I/O choices include 1.8V, 2.5V, and 3.3V options to meet different product specifications. 28nm-HP features a wide choice of metal options. 28nm-HPP technology provides a performance boost of as much as 10% over the current 28nm High Performance (HP) offering, as well as offering optional ultra-low leakage transistors and SRAMS that extend the application range from high performance into the low power range. Furthermore, a rich RF CMOS offering is also available, making it an ideal platform for the next generation of high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) designs with a broad addressable market ranging from low power to high performance devices.

28nm Super Low Power

28nm-SLP targets low-power applications including cellular base band, application processors, portable consumer and wireless connectivity devices. 28nm-SLP utilizes HKMG and presents the same dense routing of 28nm HP, but is a lower cost technology in terms of the performance elements utilized to boost carrier mobilities.

28nm-SLP supports four Vt options - super low, low, standard, and high Vt with an average voltage of 1.0V. I/O choices include 1.8V, 2.5V, and 3.3V options to meet different product specifications. 28nm-SLP features a wide choice of metal options.

28nm-SLP Device Offerings