GlobalFoundries, a spin-off of ATIC and AMD, have announced that it aims to become the world’s largest and the global foundry with fabs on each continent. Its first major venture – Fab 8 outside New York – is largely completed and it is time to install the equipment. Fab 8 will be GF’s most important fab for the foreseeable future.
GlobalFoundries is name that is ecoing around the semiconductor industry as it looks to become the first foundry with potential to complete with TSMC. Since AMD and ATIC announced the spin-off Samsung has also announced that is going to compete with TSMC. GlobalFoundries currently consists of AMD’s old fabs and previously Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor. GlobalFoundries has a broad partner support with ARM, Qualcomm, ST-MicroElectronics and not the least AMD to mention a few.
GlobalFoundries Fab 8 is the biggest venture so far. When it comes to semiconductors cleanliness is a must and then we particularly mean the “clean room” that has to be completely free from dust, which otherwise will cause problems. This happened to TSMC where it got a rough start at 40nm due to contaminations. This is where the magic happens and that is why everyone has to wear clean suits.
These clean rooms are ready and after that the plant as a whole should be ready. The next step is to install the delicate equipment that is used to manufacture circuits and it expects to mass produce 28nm Bulk/HKMG in 2012 with a capacity of 60,000 wafers/months. We mentioned earlier that Fab 8 will be GF’s most important Fab and we will explain why now.
Fab 8 will build circuits at 28nm, and the fab that will take the company “to 20nm and beyond”. Fab 1 in Dresden, germany is currently manufacturing circuits for AMD at 32nm SOI/HKMG, but will also move to 28nm in the future. Fab 1 will be the test platform for 20nm with a relatively low capacity of 5,000 wafers/month and that looks like the end station for Fab 1, before Fab 8 takes over and lead the company toward even narrower lanes and into the future.
Source: SemiAccurate
