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Globalfoundries takes ARM Cortex-A9 into 28nm land, looks forward to 20nm chips in 2013

Forget the numbers, here's what matters: Globalfoundries' new production capabilities will lead to "smooth production ramp-ups and faster time-to-market" for its customers. Now consider that this promise relates to scrumptious 28nm Cortex-A9 SOCs and feel free to rejoice. The chip fabricator has just declared itself ready to take orders for ARM's systems-on-chip built using its high-k metal gate 28nm fab process. This fulfills its pledge for mass production in the latter half of 2010, but lest you think Globalfoundries is resting on any nanoscale laurels, it also has a 20nm roadmap to tell you about. It's very simple, really: expect even smaller, even more power-efficient silicon in 2013. We don't know if the future will be bright, but it sure looks like it's gonna be small.


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GLOBALFOUNDRIES Launches Industry's First 28nm ARM Cortex-A9 Processor Platform with Gate First High-K Metal Gate

Qualification Vehicles will enable smooth production ramp-up and faster time-to-market for foundry customers


Milpitas, Calif. – September 1, 2010 – At today's inaugural Global Technology Conference, GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced it has taped-out a qualification vehicle based on the ARM® Cortexâ„¢-A9 dual processor [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMH)], an industry first on 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) technology. This Technology Qualification Vehicle (TQV) will allow GLOBALFOUNDRIES to optimize its 28nm HKMG process for customer designs based on the next-generation dual-core ARM processor, providing a faster path to market for foundry customers developing the computing devices of tomorrow.

The jointly developed TQV reached the tapeout stage in August at GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany and was a part of the strategic collaboration with ARM announced last year. Silicon results are expected back from the fab in late 2010.

"This is a significant milestone on the road to high-volume 28nm manufacturing and technology leadership for next-generation products ranging from smart mobile devices to high-performance wired applications," said Mojy Chian, senior vice president of design enablement at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "By working closely with ARM in the early stages of technology qualification, we will enable our customers to rapidly bring their ARM Cortex-A9 designs with ARM physical IP to production by setting a new standard for performance and power-efficiency."

The TQV design uses a fully optimized ARM Cortex-A9 physical IP suite, including a full range of standard cell libraries, high-speed cache memory macros for L1 and density-optimized memories in other areas. It is designed to emulate a product-like system-on-chip (SoC) in every way, allowing for maximum frequency analysis and short turnaround time between design cycles. A complete range of Design for Testability (DFT) features enables Silicon-Spice correlation of Cortex-A9 critical paths and bit-mapping of cache memories at gigahertz speed.

"As the industry adopts increasingly advanced process technologies, there is a growing need for close collaboration between design and manufacturing," said Simon Segars, ARM, executive vice president and general manager, Physical IP Division. "The combination of ARM's leading physical IP solutions and GLOBALFOUNDRIES' proven experience in high-volume manufacturing will deliver a powerful platform for innovation. Our partnership will enable customers to rapidly bring high-performance, low-power ARM technology-based designs to market on 28nm HKMG technology."

The TQV will be based on GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm High Performance (HP) technology targeted at high-performance wired applications. The collaboration also will include the 28nm High Performance Plus (HPP) technology for both wired and high-performance mobile applications, and the Super Low Power (SLP) technology for power-sensitive mobile and consumer applications. All technologies feature GLOBALFOUNDRIES' innovative Gate First approach to HKMG. The approach is superior to other 28nm HKMG solutions in both scalability and manufacturability, offering a substantially smaller die size and cost, as well as compatibility with proven design elements and process flows from previous technology nodes.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM first unveiled the details of their leading-edge SoC platform technology in Q3 2009. The companies project the new chip manufacturing platform will enable a 40 percent increase in computing performance, a 30 percent decrease in power consumption, and a 100 percent increase in standby battery life when compared to the 40nm technology generation.

ABOUT GTC 2010
GLOBALFOUNDRIES' inaugural Global Technology Conference features keynotes from industry leaders and presentations from senior members of the GLOBALFOUNDRIES management and technical teams, with a special emphasis on how the company achieves time-to-volume leadership by leveraging global collaboration with customers and partners. GTC 2010 begins Wednesday, September 1 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, kicking off a series of GTC 2010 "Road Show" events to be held at strategic international venues including China, Taiwan, Japan and Europe. For more information on GTC 2010, visit: http://www.globalfoundries.com/gtc2010/.

ABOUT GLOBALFOUNDRIES
GLOBALFOUNDRIES is the world's first full-service semiconductor foundry with a truly global manufacturing and technology footprint. Launched in March 2009 through a partnership between AMD [NYSE: AMD] and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), GLOBALFOUNDRIES provides a unique combination of advanced technology, manufacturing excellence and global operations. With the integration of Chartered in January 2010, GLOBALFOUNDRIES significantly expanded its capacity and ability to provide best-in-class foundry services from mainstream to the leading edge. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is headquartered in Silicon Valley with manufacturing operations in Singapore, Germany, and a new leading-edge fab under construction in Saratoga County, New York. These sites are supported by a global network of R&D, design enablement, and customer support in Singapore, China, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

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At GTC 2010, GLOBALFOUNDRIES Lays Out Path for Sustained Technology Leadership at 28nm and Beyond

Company adds new 28nm technology offering, unveils 22/20nm roadmap


Milpitas, Calif. – September 1, 2010 – At today's inaugural Global Technology Conference, GLOBALFOUNDRIES revealed the latest details of its progress in technology development for the 28nm technology generation and beyond. The company announced the addition of a new technology offering based on its 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) technology and revealed for the first time its manufacturing timeline for the 22/20nm node.

"From the very beginning our vision has been to be the technology leader in the foundry industry," said Gregg Bartlett, senior vice president of technology and research and development at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "We ramped to volume production at the 45/40nm generation well ahead of all foundries and we are poised to maintain this leadership at 32/28nm, with plans to extend this to the 22/20nm node. By leveraging our unique heritage of leading-edge manufacturing and foundry best practices, we will enable our customers to achieve the fastest time-to-market for their next-generation designs."

28nm High Performance "Plus"

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today introduced a new technology to address the growing market for smart mobile devices and high-performance processors requiring more than 2GHz of processing power. Scheduled to begin risk production in Q4 2011, the 28nm High Performance Plus (HPP) technology provides a performance boost of as much as 10% over the company's current 28nm High Performance (HP) offering, as well as offering optional ultra-low leakage transistors and SRAMs that extend the application range from high performance into the low power range. Furthermore, a rich RF CMOS offering also is available, making this technology an ideal platform for the next generation of high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) designs with a broad addressable market ranging from low-power to high-performance devices.

The new 28nm-HPP technology rounds out GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 28nm offerings, which include the 28nm High Performance (HP) technology targeted at high-performance wired applications and the Super Low Power (SLP) technology for power-sensitive mobile and consumer applications. All 28nm technologies feature GLOBALFOUNDRIES' innovative Gate First approach to HKMG. The approach is superior to other 28nm HKMG solutions in both scalability and manufacturability, offering a substantially smaller die size and cost, as well as compatibility with proven design elements and process flows from previous technology nodes.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is currently accepting designs for its 28nm technologies. Multiple customer designs have already been silicon-validated, and many more product and IP test chips are being validated at GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

The Path to 22/20nm

With risk production set to begin in 2H 2012, GLOBALFOUNDRIES is well on its way to delivering 22/20nm technology to customers for product introduction in 2013. The 20nm technology offerings will come in two varieties: a High Performance (HP) technology designed for wired applications such as servers and media processors, and a 20nm Super Low Power (SLP) technology designed for power-sensitive mobile applications. GLOBALFOUNDRIES also will have access to a 22nm Super High Performance (SHP) technology designed for devices requiring the utmost in performance. The 22/20nm technologies are planned to be a full node shrink from 32/28nm, and will utilize next-generation HKMG technology and strain engineering to enable the area and die cost scaling the industry has come to expect with each technology generation. Test chip shuttles for customers will begin running in Fab 1 in 2H2011.

ABOUT GTC 2010
GLOBALFOUNDRIES' inaugural Global Technology Conference features keynotes from industry leaders and presentations from senior members of the GLOBALFOUNDRIES management and technical teams, with a special emphasis on how the company achieves time-to-volume leadership by leveraging global collaboration with customers and partners. GTC 2010 begins Wednesday, September 1 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, kicking off a series of GTC 2010 "Road Show" events to be held at strategic international venues including China, Taiwan, Japan and Europe. For more information on GTC 2010, visit: http://www.globalfoundries.com/gtc2010/.

ABOUT GLOBALFOUNDRIES
GLOBALFOUNDRIES is the world's first full-service semiconductor foundry with a truly global manufacturing and technology footprint. Launched in March 2009 through a partnership between AMD [NYSE: AMD] and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), GLOBALFOUNDRIES provides a unique combination of advanced technology, manufacturing excellence and global operations. With the integration of Chartered in January 2010, GLOBALFOUNDRIES significantly expanded its capacity and ability to provide best-in-class foundry services from mainstream to the leading edge. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is headquartered in Silicon Valley with manufacturing operations in Singapore, Germany, and a new leading-edge fab under construction in Saratoga County, New York. These sites are supported by a global network of R&D, design enablement, and customer support in Singapore, China, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. For more information on GLOBALFOUNDRIES, visit http://www.globalfoundries.com.

For more information on GLOBALFOUNDRIES, visit http://www.globalfoundries.com.