GloFo says it has started producing customer silicon on a 32nm process at its New York fab. The products are planned to ramp to volume production in the second half of 2012.
The chips use IBM’s 32nm, SOI technology, developed by IBM’s Process Development Alliance with early research at the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.
. "Recently, we announced that we would spend $3.6 billion researching and developing new silicon technology in New York," says Michael Cadigan, general manager, IBM Microelectronics.
GloFo’s Fab 8 campus, located in the Luther Forest Technology Campus about 100 miles north of the IBM campus in East Fishkill will, when fully ramped, have the total clean-room space of be approximately 300,000sq ft and be capable of a total output of approximately 60,000 wafers per month. Fab 8 will focus on leading-edge manufacturing at 32/28nm and below.
The companies’ 32/28nm technology uses the same "Gate First" approach to High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) which, says GloFo has reached volume production in GloFo’s Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.
This approach to HKMG, says GloFo. offers higher performance with a 10-20% cost saving over HKMG solutions offered by other foundries, while still providing the full entitlement of scaling from the 45/40nm node.
The Fab 8 ICs use IBM’s eDRAM which is claimed to deliver memory in about one-third the space with one-fifth the standby power of conventional SRAM