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GlobalFoundries VP details FDX Fusion technology, sporting 7nm-class performance without the need for EUV tools — company targets 2030 for high-volume manufacturing, with planar transistors in tow
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Eight years after GlobalFoundries abandoned the development of its 7nm FinFET technology, the company is preparing to return to 7nm-class performance, this time by going via a different route. Its FDX Fusion process, built on FD-SOI (fully depleted silicon-on-insulator) technology, promises 7nm-class performance using advanced planar transistors, with no EUV lithography necessary.
In an interview with Tom's Hardware Premium, GlobalFoundries' Sudipto Bose, vice president of the FD-SOI business unit, shared new details about its FDX Fusion technology, including its 8nm-class logic density, advanced planar transistors, manufacturing costs, and plans to begin commercial production in 2028. The company also explained how it intends to compete with conventional FinFET technologies and why it believes FD-SOI has a future beyond the 22nm-class generation. Some elements of this interview transcript have been edited for flow and clarity.
Sudipto Bose: I have been at GlobalFoundries (GF) for a little bit over six years, and I have been in the industry for 25+ years. I spent the rest of my career at Texas Instruments (TI), so it's really two jobs that I have done: TI and GF. Half and half engineering and business. I spent a lot of my business days in the automotive segment. This was what I was doing at GF when I joined, and now I have the FDX product line role.
Sudipto Bose: A little bit on the history of FDX at GF. GF has been investing in FD-SOI for a long time. It started [these efforts] before I joined. So I would say almost eight years now. And a lot of the investment thesis that drove us towards FDX Fusion is based on the traction that we have in the market today, right? We have quite a few customers who are ramping up. And I say quite a few; this is like high double-digit customers in the nineties that are ramping up right now.
Anton Shilov: What specific types of chips and devices is FDX Fusion designed for? Which application will benefit most from its capabilities?
Sudipto Bose: FDX Fusion will try to enhance the applications in which we play today. What do I mean by that? If you look at our current customers, they are designing chips, everything to do with connectivity. When I say connectivity, think of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, satcom, all of that. So that is one class of customers.
There's another class of customers who are designing processors at the edge, so these are MCUs (microcontroller units) with some level of inference sitting inside. Think of customers like Alif Semiconductors. So that is another class: MCUs at the edge.
Then in automotive, we have a disproportionate exposure to radar, and this is because of the eighty-one gigahertz performance that FDX brings to the table. So we will engage with them as they try to enhance their portfolio. We also have an automotive MCU, but radar is where you will see a lot of press releases that we have done.
Last but not least, we also have exposure in the data center segment. This also goes back to the fT/fmax, the high-performance RF that we have, which is a good candidate for designing TIAs and clock recovery circuits.