Globalfoundries joins IMEC's CMOS club

LONDON – Abu Dhabi owned foundry chipmaker Globalfoundries Inc. has signed a "strategic, long-term" partnership with European research institute IMEC on sub-22nm CMOS scaling and GaN-on-Si technology.

IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) did not say what long-term means in terms of a number of years or how much revenue it would mean for IMEC. IMEC already has key research partnerships on CMOS with TSMC, Intel, Samsung, Elpida and Hynix amongst others. Under the deal Globalfoundries becomes a core CMOS partner.

Imec’s sub-22-nm core CMOS program aims at developing processes that can be used in high-volume manufacturing of future logic and memory ICs. The program encompasses material and device studies, tool and process step exploration, integration options and advanced characterization towards process technology platforms for the next generation of ICs, as well as exploring and developing the options for further generations. Globalfoundries also gains access to EUV lithography research, device technology for logic and memory, nano-interconnects and 3-D integration.

A the same time Globalfoundries has joined the IMEC GaN research program, which aims at high-performance, cost-effective GaN devices on silicon. This program is aiming to create viable GaN-on-Si process for production on 200-mm diameter wafers. Power and RF applications can both benefit from such a process.

"Partnering with Globalfoundries is very important for IMEC and our partners since it strengthens our collaboration with foundries and thus also the ecosystem we offer in our programs to IDMs and the fabless and fab-lite community," said Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of IMEC, in a statement.


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