IN Brief:
- 40UX combines ultra-low-leakage devices, SRAM, embedded flash, analogue functions, and RF enablement on a 40nm platform.
- 22UX targets analogue-intensive sensing, imaging, mixed-signal systems, and edge AI using an optimised 22nm process.
- Both technologies are available for customer engagement and prototyping through GlobalShuttle, with quarterly shuttles scheduled through 2027.
GlobalFoundries has released process design kits for its 40UX and 22UX CMOS technologies, moving a process family introduced last year into customer design and prototyping. The two platforms target intelligent-edge products where low-power digital logic has to operate alongside analogue interfaces, sensing, RF connectivity, embedded memory, and increasingly local AI processing without pushing every design towards a leading-edge process node.
40UX is based on GlobalFoundries’ high-volume 40nm technology and is aimed principally at connected microcontrollers, wireless devices, and always-on edge systems. It combines ultra-low-leakage transistors and SRAM with low-noise analogue capability, embedded flash incorporating built-in self-test, and RF enablement intended for products including Bluetooth Low Energy devices and sensor interfaces.
The manufacturing base is considerably more mature than the new UX name might suggest. GlobalFoundries says the underlying 40nm platform with high-endurance embedded flash has already shipped more than one million wafers. Volume production of 40UX is scheduled to ramp at the company’s Singapore site during 2027, with future manufacture also planned at Malta, New York.
That combination reflects the practical requirements of embedded silicon. Many controllers and connected products need modest digital processing alongside data converters, low-noise front ends, radio functions, non-volatile programme storage, and aggressive standby modes. Those analogue and memory functions can matter more to the finished product than transistor density, particularly where cost, battery life, and long-term availability outweigh maximum processor frequency.
The 40UX roadmap includes further high-voltage and noise-related options, Automotive Grade 1 qualification, and additional embedded non-volatile memory capability. Those remain roadmap items rather than presently available production features, so designers working with the current PDK have to distinguish between what can be implemented now and what GlobalFoundries intends to add as the platform matures.
22UX addresses a different class of system. The 22nm platform is optimised for analogue, sensing, imaging, and mixed-signal designs requiring greater integration than 40UX while retaining an emphasis on power efficiency. GlobalFoundries lists low-noise analogue devices, improved device matching, wafer-scale Random Telegraph Signal noise characterisation, bonding-ready wafers for 3D integration, and a low-noise 3.3V analogue FET among its current features.
Image-sensor readout circuitry is one explicit target. Stacked CMOS image sensors can separate the sensing layer from the readout and processing electronics, allowing each to use a more appropriate technology. Bonding-ready wafers therefore provide a route to combine specialised sensing structures with analogue and digital readout silicon without requiring every function to share the same process.
The 22UX roadmap goes further, including ultra-low-leakage options, analogue compute-in-memory, and embedded memory. Those additions could become relevant where edge systems need to reduce the movement of sensor data between separate devices, but they should not be confused with the capabilities available in the initial PDK. The immediate proposition is an analogue-optimised 22nm platform rather than a completed compute-in-memory product.
GlobalFoundries says 22UX was developed using modules derived from high-volume technology, including elements associated with its 28nm manufacturing base, which has also passed one million shipped wafers. Production will begin in Dresden, Germany, with a roadmap for additional manufacturing sites later. That reuse of proven modules is significant for analogue and embedded customers, which generally place considerable value on process predictability and long-term manufacturing support.
Availability of the PDKs is the more useful milestone for design engineers. A process becomes actionable when transistor models, design rules, verification decks, and supporting design infrastructure can be incorporated into an actual chip flow. Both 40UX and 22UX are now available for customer engagement and prototyping through GlobalFoundries’ GlobalShuttle multi-project wafer programme, with quarterly shuttles scheduled through 2027.
The two-node strategy also avoids treating every intelligent-edge product as the same engineering problem. A connected microcontroller with embedded flash and BLE has different cost and integration priorities from an imaging IC carrying precision analogue circuitry and stacked-die interfaces. Giving customers both 40nm and 22nm routes allows the process choice to be driven by analogue complexity, memory requirements, power, area, and manufacturing economics rather than assuming that the smaller node is automatically preferable.
GlobalFoundries has been widening the technology surrounding its manufacturing platforms, including processor IP, photonics, embedded memory, and power delivery. Its wider portfolio expansion now stretches well beyond wafer fabrication alone, but the UX release is more immediately useful to designers because the PDKs turn that roadmap into something that can enter a current development flow. Customer tape-outs and qualification will now show whether the two processes can turn their mix of analogue, sensing, connectivity, and embedded capability into commercially useful silicon rather than another broad edge-AI platform label.
