14 DAY TRIAL // Globalfoundries is relatively young, compared to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung's foundries, but it is doing its best to come into its own, as shown by its latest deal.
The foundry has made a deal with Infineon Technologies for the development and production of embedded Flash products based on the 40nm manufacturing process technology.
It fits Infineon's tactic for co-developing CMOS-based technologies in 65nm nodes and below.
"Next generation embedded Flash microcontrollers with 40nm process structures will further enhance our competitive strength in the automotive as well as chip card and security markets," says Arunjai Mittal, member of the management board of Infineon Technologies.
"We trust in GLOBALFOUNDRIES with their excellent manufacturing background and sites on different continents to fulfill Infineon's stringent quality, infrastructure security and business continuity requirements."
The new 40nm eFlash MCUs (microcontrollers) will be used in automotive and security applications.
Initially, production will start at Globalfoundries' sites in Singapore, and then in Dresden, Germany.
The collaboration won't yield results immediately though. In fact, it won't bring results even in the mid-term.
Process and product qualification is planned for the second half of 2015, which is a way off, and microcontroller production start is scheduled for the first half of 2017.
"Infineon's decision to choose GLOBALFOUNDRIES as the foundry partner for the 40nm embedded Flash technology node recognizes our unique ability to offer one-foundry-solutions supported by multiple fabs in different geographies," says Ajit Manocha, CEO Globalfoundries.
"We are committed to providing leading-edge technology and manufacturing capabilities required to support Infineon's business. We are looking forward to a long-term collaboration with Infineon and to contribute to their success in a very dynamic industry."
Meanwhile, Globalfoundries will have to put a lot of work into 20nm too, since it probably won't be used for microcontrollers for a long time, or even for Flash devices, but it is the process that AMD is interested in.