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GLOBALFOUNDRIES throws down the gauntlet to TSMC

by Scott Bicheno on 21 April 2009, 07:00

Tags: TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES

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Foundry fight

An alliance of technology companies, which includes IBM, Samsung, Chartered, Infineon, STMicroelectronics and the spin-off of AMD's manufacturing operations - GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) - has announced the joint development of 28 nanometer semiconductor manufacturing process technology.

The significance of a shrink in the manufacturing process technology (the most recent CPUs are made using a 45nm process) is that it allows either an increase in outright processing performance or a reduction in the size and power required to achieve the same performance.

With GF being the sole manufacturer of AMD processors, this announcement is being viewed by many as a shot across the bows of Intel.

There's no doubt that any progress in semiconductor research from competitors to Intel is significant, but GF is now a supposedly independent semiconductor foundry and, as such, has its sights set on its own competitors, the biggest of which is TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).

For GF to be a success, it has to appeal to a lot more companies than AMD. The development of a cross-over node at 28nm (full nodes either side are 32nm and 22nm) is being positioned as significant because it may create a differentiator between GF and TSMC. If GF can use that differentiator to take customers away from TSMC, that would represent a significant achievement.