Globalfoundries Prepares for 14nm Chip Manufacture

Being one of the main two chip manufacturers in the world, Globalfoundries has to constantly step up its game and, sure enough, it is looking quite a bit ahead in terms of manufacturing process technologies.

Whether through a coincidence or not, companies have begun talking about their semiconductor manufacturing technologies and further plans.

SanDisk is one of the players looking forward to a new batch of memory products, based on the 19nm process.

Now, Globalfoundries has taken its turn, though it spoke about something farther down the line.

Whereas SanDisk is already making 19nm products, Globalfoundries drew attention to the 14nm node and the facility it means to use for the creation of chips.

The contract maker of semiconductors did not go into specifics about dates of shipments and mass production.

Still, it made it more than clear that the fab in Dresden, Germany would keep getting upgrades, so that it could make 32nm chips and, eventually, 28nm, 20nm and, of course, 14nm.

It should be noted that Globalfoundries probably won't have an easy time when it does get to that node, and maybe even sooner.

The foundry already went through a series of problems with the 32nm SOI HKMG technology, and while it does seem to have overcome the challenges, it won't help if it does a repeat with 14nm.

The CEO, at least, was optimistic when broaching the issue: “People thought that gate first would never work, but didn’t we prove everybody wrong?” Mr. Manocha asked.

There is also the fact that TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) used silicon oxynitride in most of their 28nm chips instead of a high-k metal gate, meaning that it did not pose much competition to Globalfoundries on that issue, or so Manocha feels.

Then again, if TSMC gets its act together and ramps up production, there is no telling how well Globalfoundries will perform, especially after the difficult year 2011.