Globalfoundries announced a successful tape out of 20nm test chips and that it is ready for customers to start evaluating their 20nm designs.
Of course, it will take some time before we see actual 20nm products hit the market. The new process requires extensive retooling and requires a lot of cooperation with foundry partners. Glofo is collaborating with EDA vendors on the new process and it believes the tape out is a major milestone.
EDA partners demonstrated their tools were capable of handling new 20nm requirements, brought about by new double patterning technology and other challenges of 20nm chips. Globafoundries says it will make the design libraries and flow scripts available to all potential customers who want to evaluate 20nm technology.
No timeframe was given for 20nm production. Globalfoundries started shipping its first 32nm parts a couple of months back and it is expected to ship the first 28nm chips sometime next quarter.
Ready for customer design evaluation
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