At its annual GF Technology Summit (GTS), GlobalFoundries launched GF Labs, a new program that extends the development horizon of innovative, differentiated semiconductor technology and broadens the company’s portfolio of feature-rich and enablement solutions. GF Labs will focus on advancing new technology and long-term roadmap differentiation that will enable GF customers to develop innovative products and accelerate their time-to-market.

Semiconductor innovation is essential to the growth and development of technology megatrends that are reshaping the global economy including the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, 6G, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and next generation automotive, all of which are propelling semiconductor market revenue to more than $1.3 trillion by the end of the decade, according to International Business Strategies.

GF has a proven track record of innovating novel materials such as FD-SOI on 22FDX, and novel device architectures that enabled GF Fotonix, the company’s recently announced next generation silicon photonics platform.

GF Labs expands and accelerates this innovation momentum by creating an open framework of internal and external research and development initiatives that deliver a differentiated pipeline of market-driven process technology solutions for future data-centric, connected, intelligent and secure applications.

“Fostering semiconductor innovation is critical to delivering a differentiated technology portfolio that will continue to fuel emerging markets,” said Gregg Bartlett, senior vice president of Technology, Engineering and Quality, GF. “Our focus is on making sure we’re always developing the latest technologies that provide meaningful differentiation for our customers, not just in the near-term, but far into the next decade. The launch of GF Labs accelerates our pursuit of the innovation it takes to develop and deliver powerful technological advances for our customers.”

GF has a proven track record of building partnerships with startup innovators, industry consortia, material suppliers, universities and government entities worldwide. Leveraging GF’s extensive patent portfolio and deep technical expertise in digital, analog, mixed-signal, RF and embedded memory, GF Labs will harvest capabilities from a broad research platform including the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) in Belgium, Fraunhofer in Germany, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S., and the Institute for Microelectronics in Singapore, along with a broad network of university partnerships.

Research and development within GF Labs is underway with a slate of innovative technology capabilities and solutions already in development such as radio frequency silicon on insulator (RFSOI) and silicon-germanium (SiGe). GF will continue to invest to expand and develop tailored solutions, with GF Labs serving as the R&D engine accelerating differentiated solutions based on wide-band-gap semiconductors that go beyond the traditional approach of shrinking transistors. Additional program details and partners will be announced in the second half of 2022.