Leifeng.com Note: Last year, when Samsung and TSMC's 7nm process was about to be launched, GF suddenly announced an important strategic transformation, and decided to stop all work in the 7nm process technology and subsequent process research and development, and will focus on providing professional manufacturing processes to customers in emerging high-growth markets, including low-power fields such as RF chips and embedded memory chips. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to improve advanced semiconductor processes. Whether it is , Intel , or TSMC, they are further improving performance through advanced packaging technology. It seems that GF has also joined in it. This may mean that the competition for advanced semiconductor processes is entering a new stage.
GF (GlobalFoundries, Grofonte) announced this week that it has used its 12nm FinFET process to create high-performance 3D Arm chips. GF believes that these high-density 3D chips will provide "new levels" of system performance and energy consumption for computing applications, such as AI/ML, as well as high-end device and wireless solutions. "
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3D chip competition
test chip is manufactured using GF's 12nm (12LP) FinFET process, while using Arm mesh interconnect technology in the 3D surface. This makes it easier for the chip to expand out more core counts, and data can be moved more directly from one core to another. 3D chips can reduce latency in data centers, edge computing, and high-end consumer devices and improve data transmission speed.
" In the era of big data and cognitive computing, advanced packaging technology is playing a greater role than before. The development of artificial intelligence requires high-efficiency and high-throughput interconnection to be met through the accelerated development of advanced packaging technology. "GF's chief technology expert on platform John Pellerin said in a statement.
"We are pleased to work with innovative partners such as Arm to provide advanced packaging solutions that further integrate various nodes, optimize logic sizes, and improve memory bandwidth and RF performance." This work will enable us to generate new insights into the adoption of advanced packaging technologies, allowing our shared customers to create complete, differentiated solutions more effectively. "
Two companies have used GF's wafer-to-wafer bonding to verify 3D design tests (DFT, 3D Design-for-Test) method. GF says the technology can achieve up to 1 million 3D connections per square millimeter, making it highly scalable and promising to extend the service life of 12nm 3D chips.
Arm is one of the most recent IP companies showing interest in 3D chips. Intel announced its research on 3D chip stacking last year, and AMD also discussed 3D stacked DRAM and SRAM on its chips, of course, flash NAND has produced 3D memory chips. The industry seems to be committed to making more 3D chips in the near future.
advanced node lags, GF focuses on 3D chips
GF recently had to admit that it could not launch Zen for AMD 2 chips offer 7nm process. This greatly impacted the decade-long relationship between the two companies. Of course, AMD is still a customer of GF, but much smaller than before.
GF has to reinvent itself for the future, as Moore's Law has slowed down and shrinking semiconductor process nodes has become increasingly difficult and expensive. The shift to 3D chip manufacturing seems to help GF maintain its relationship with customers, as its customers require higher performance chips to be made every year.
Since the 12nm process is more mature, it should be easier to develop chips on the 3D surface without worrying about the possible problems caused by the new 7nm process. However, it is only a matter of time before TSMC, Samsung and Intel can develop 3D chips on nodes much smaller than GF. If so, GF may have to continue to focus on producing high-value 3D chips with "old technology".
Leifeng.com compiled, via Tom'sHardware Leifeng.com
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