May 20th, 2015

GLOBALFOUNDRIES, a leading provider of advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology, today announced it is offering a 28nm High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) radio frequency (RF) process technology that will provide power-efficient solutions for highly integrated mobile applications and connected devices. Based on GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 28nm Super Low Power (SLP) technology with HKMG, the 28nm-SLP-RF process includes a comprehensive set of design capabilities enabling chip designers to integrate critical RF system-on-chip (SoC) functionality into their products.
"The proliferation of connected devices and IoT consumer applications has created an opportunity and demand for RF-enabled chips," said Mike Mendicino, senior director of product management at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "GLOBALFOUNDRIES' RF-enabled 28nm process lowers design barriers and enables a broader range of customers to accelerate time-to-volume of leading-edge RF SoCs."
The 28nm-SLP-RF process is built on the field-proven, cost-optimized 28nm-SLP HKMG process. Silicon results have demonstrated high-frequency performance (Ft ~ 310GHz) and low flicker/thermal noise providing chip designers flexibility in optimizing core RF performance and functionality in a cost-effective logic platform. The 28nm-SLP-RF process technology is designed for the next generation of connected devices that require low standby power and long battery life integrated with RF/wireless functionality. The technology is enabled with key RF features, including core and I/O (1.5V/1.8V) transistor RF models along with 5V LDMOS devices, which simplifies RF SoC design. For passive RF devices, 28nm-SLP-RF offers alternate polarity metal-oxide-metal (APMOM) capacitors up to 5V, deep n-well devices, diffusion, poly and precision resistors, inductors and an ultra-thick metal (UTM) layer. All RF-enabled devices are scalable, hardware verified across the entire operating range, and have met industry standard reliability qualification requirements. Volume production of the 28nm-SLP platform started in 2012.
GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 28nm-SLP-RF technology utilizes the companies' production-proven, 28nm-SLP silicon-validated design flows, which include a complete set of libraries, compilers, and complex IP. The company has collaborated with leading companies in the EDA/IP ecosystem to deliver an optimized process design kit (PDK) that supports highly accurate RF SPICE models and comprehensive technology files that are integral to RF designs. GLOBALFOUNDRIES' enhanced 28nm-SLP-RF PDK and verification method is available now.