Samsung today announced that its foundry business, Samsung Foundry, successfully taped-out a test chip based on its 20nm process with High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology. Together with key ecosystem partners, Samsung Foundry is taking innovative steps to validate a robust design infrastructure for its latest manufacturing technology node. At the 20nm process, an entirely new design infrastructure approach is needed to address impediments in developing and manufacturing next-generation, energy-efficient SoCs. Many new 20nm design kits, router and other design enablement features were used in this first test chip to support novel process innovations such as new device structures, local interconnects, and advanced routing rules. Due to the investment that Samsung is making into the entire ecosystem at 20nm process, customers will have broad access to all aspects of the design infrastructure.
Leveraging the unique IP integration capabilities from ARM, Samsung was able to use ARM physical and processor IP to validate the design readiness of their most advanced node. Samsung Foundry’s 20nm early access process design kit (PDK) is currently available to those customers who are in the initial stages of designing their next-generation products.