Globalfoundries Starts on 22nm Fab & Announces First non-AMD Customer
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 29, 2009 4:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Meet Fab 2
Let’s get the numbers and politics out of the way. Fab 2 will be built in Saratoga County, NY. The plant will cost $4.2 billion to complete, but with the deep pockets of ATIC and tax incentives from the state of NY, this won’t be a problem. When it’s finished you’re looking at more than 1,400 high skilled jobs. It’ll take a couple thousand construction workers to build the place and when it’s all done Globalfoundries is estimating 5,000 ancillary jobs (gotta feed the engineers and entertain their families). Globalfoundries is also contributing $5M to community projects to the two towns that border the Luther Forest Technology Park where Fab 2 will be built. In short, there’s a lot of money going around.
The location actually makes a lot of sense. Just a few miles away is the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, a part of the University at Albany. CNSE is not your normal graduate campus; the $4B campus actually houses a modern microprocessor fab facility capable of producing 300mm 45nm wafers just like the best Globalfoundries has to offer today. While the plant is purely a research fab (limited to 25 wafers per day vs. ~1200 per day at Fab 2), it’s serves its purpose for companies and students looking to perform research at an advanced microprocessor fab. CNSE also holds one of the two alpha EUV lithography machines in the world; EUV lithography will be needed to replace immersion lithography to scale down beyond 22nm.
That's where Fab 2 will go
When Fab 2 comes on line in 2012 it'll be a 28nm/22nm fab, with the bulk of its production hopefully being 22nm.
Half vs. Full Nodes
I asked Globalfoundries a question that I'd always wondered for myself: why are GPUs manufactured on half nodes and CPUs manufactured on, er, whole nodes? Let me give you an example.
Intel's CPU transitions went from 90nm to 65nm to 45nm and are now moving to 32nm. AMD followed a similar path.
NVIDIA's GPUs however went from 90nm to 80nm to 65nm to 55nm to 40nm in roughly the same time period. ATI's GPUs did the same.
The in-between nodes (80nm, 55nm and later 28nm) are called half-nodes. And the CPU guys don't use them simply because their design cycles are longer and more complex than what comes out of ATI/NVIDIA. There's no technical downside to using half nodes, it's just added design work for little benefit for a CPU maker.
GPU design cycles are much shorter, so taking advantage of half nodes just makes sense. It all stems from the birth of the 6 month product cycle back in the late 1990s.
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TA152H - Thursday, July 30, 2009 - link
Obviously, you're a moron.Think before you post, OK?
IBM CAN afford just about anything, but they don't afford things that lose money. Perforce, IBM's fabs make money, or they'd jettison them. How is it they make money with their fabs, and AMD can't? AMD sells a lot more processors. The answer is simple, except for you. AMD is making a crappy processor they can't sell for much money.
I'll say it again, because you're obviously slow. IBM has fabs that make money, or they'd get out of the business. They sell less processors. Therefore, AMD having to own the x86 business is a idiotic remark. They just need processors that they can sell for a higher margin. Got it now, simpleton?
HVAC - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - link
Dear Brybir,Here, let me help you by writing the reply you should have written instead of the diatribe you did submit:
"@TA152H .... MORON!"
brybir - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - link
You are correct.I got caught in a moment of weakness in my desire to keep the trolls away. I am also bored at work. A very bad combination.
What I have done here represents all that is bad and wrong with the world. I will turn in my nerd card at the door and go sit in a shallow pool of cold water in a dark corner of the room until I am better.
DFranch - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - link
strikeback03: I did not realize that Malta, NY had a reputation for rain. It's not exactly Seattle.strikeback03 - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - link
I lived in the area for 4 years, it rains enough, and snows morekarhill - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - link
Malta's annual rainfall is about 43.5 inches, compared to 37 inches for Seattle.Tuor - Thursday, July 30, 2009 - link
Heh. You shouldn't be looking at rain totals, but days per year that it's mostly cloudy/cloudy. I'm pretty sure Seattle will beat out Malta pretty easily in that regard... but maybe not.JarredWalton - Thursday, July 30, 2009 - link
http://countrystudies.us/united-states/weather/was...">Olympia is much worse than http://countrystudies.us/united-states/weather/was...">Seattle, according to that site.JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - link
Ha! You leave my lovely state of WA out of this. At least here in Olympia, we get very little (if any) rain during the time of June-August. My grass is dead, and current temps are in the mid-90s (supposed to hit 101F today!), which totally sucks. Anything above 80F is too hot for me. :-(GIVE ME BACK MY RAIN, DAGNABBIT!
FYI, Olympia gets more rain than Seattle: estimate is around 180 days of rain per year. LOL
just4U - Thursday, July 30, 2009 - link
Yeah it's really hot here in Calgary, Canada right now. It's like 61F .. and were expecting it to get up to 82F tomorrow.. Ugh!!(WTH who thru that shoe at me! oO)