Semiconductor Update: GlobalFoundries Gives Up On 7nm​

GlobalFoundries has given up work on their 7nm process node. This is a direct result of AMD choosing TSMC over GlobalFoundries to fab their next generation microprocessor.

GlobalFounderies was always something of an odd duck. It was spun out from AMD in 2009 to turn their manufacturing arm into a foundry because AMD itself could no longer afford the huge upfront capital investment state-of-the-art wafer fabrication plants demanded. As it exists today, GlobalFounderies​ is a Frankenstein’s monster of agglomeration, having gobbled up Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor and what remained of IBM’s fab infrastructure (back in the day, IBM had some of the best semiconductor design capabilities in the world) in New York and Vermont. (SK Hynix, NXP and ON Semiconductor, all integrated device manufacturers rather than foundries, are similar merger-assembled aggregations.) GlobalFounderies actual owner is the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

With UMC screwing the pooch by letting Chinese spies walk out the door with Micron design IP, there was an opening for a (sorta, kinda) American chip foundry to provide a viable rival to TSMC, but GlobalFoundries evidently found it too difficult to do profitably.

TSMC has already broken ground on a fab that will theoretically take them down to 5nm and is expected to cost $500 billion NT, which works out to over $16 billion US at current exchange rates. That’s more outlay than all the profit TSMC made all of last year.

Some thoughts (partially based on scuttlebutt, gossip, etc.):

  • Right now there’s no non-TSMC foundry choice if a fabless chip company wants to attempt a sub 14nm design. It’s Taiwan or nothing.
  • To the best of my knowledge, no one outside TSMC, Intel and Samsung are even attempting 7nm. Word is that TSMC’s 7nm is actually closer to 10nm, and Intel is evidently in a world of hurt getting yields up on its 10nm process.
  • Samsung says they’re going to 7nm in 2019 using Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a long, long awaited technological shift that will probably involve its own painful learning curve. Others have speculated that, despite those plans, Samsung seems pretty happy sitting at 14nm with high yields for most of its own chip needs (as opposed to its foundry customers).

    • What this means is that the cutting edge of wafer fabrication technology is probably going to be centered on the Pacific rim for the foreseeable future. China won’t be on that cutting edge, because they can’t steal technology fast enough or hire enough enough qualified process techs to get it done.

    We may finally have reached a point that building a cutting edge, state-of-the-art wafer fabrication plant is a money-losing proposition for everyone.

    That means fabless chip designers working at the cutting edge will be dependent on Taiwan and South Korea for the foreseeable future, a fact that has a lot of foreign policy relevance, especially in relation to China…

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    This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2018 at 8:21 AM and is filed under Economics, Foreign Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    One Response to “Semiconductor Update: GlobalFoundries Gives Up On 7nm​”

    1. steve.c says:
      August 30, 2018 at 2:39 PM

      …and if you can’t build it or buy it, then it’s not hard to extrapolate what likely comes next.

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