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GlobalFoundries Stops All 7nm Development: Opts To Focus on Specialized Processes (anandtech.com)

Posted by msmash on from the change-of-plans dept.

GlobalFoundries has made a major strategy shift announcement. The contract maker of semiconductors says it is ceasing development of bleeding edge manufacturing technologies and stop all work on its 7LP (7 nm) fabrication processes, which will not be used for any client. From a report: Instead, the company will focus on specialized process technologies for clients in emerging high-growth markets. These technologies will initially be based on the company's 14LPP/12LP platform and will include RF, embedded memory, and low power features. Because of the strategy shift, GF will cut 5% of its staff as well as renegotiate its WSA and IP-related deals with AMD and IBM.

GlobalFoundries was on track to tape out its clients' first chips made using its 7 nm process technology in the fourth quarter of this year, but "a few weeks ago" the company decided to take a drastic strategical turn, says Gary Patton. The CTO stressed that the decision was made not based on technical issues that the company faced, but on a careful consideration of business opportunities the company had with its 7LP platform as well as financial concerns. On the heels of this announcement, AMD said today that it will move all of its 7nm production on both CPUs and GPUs to TSMC.

2 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Did Moore's law just end? by sbaker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did Moore's law just end? Intel said they thought it had...maybe this is confirmation.

    --
    www.sjbaker.org
    1. Re:Did Moore's law just end? by AbRASiON · · Score: 5, Informative

      Firstly, their definition of "7nm" is actually, about the same as Intel 10nm, it's stupid marketing lies and speak.

      Secondly, Intel themselves are stuggling like total crazy to achieve 10nm reliably.

      So, to answer your question, yeah, I think Moores Law is very very close to dead if not dead. Just go look up benchmarks for processors designed 5 years ago, they're still viable now.

      If you compare frequency, IPC, core count, relatively, you'll see the amount of progress we've had in the past 5 years is, atrociously bad, very, very bad.
      This is why mom / pop PCs built even up to 7 years ago, just need 2 more sticks of ram, the dust blown out and an SSD with a Windows re-install, they'll be fine for another 5.

      It's over, no more bleeding edge, insane fast PCs. Just very very small burps forward.