Collaborative innovation for future mobile applications

Advanced mobile applications are the predominant driver for semiconductor technology innovations both at the leading edge and at the mature nodes. The short life-cycles of mobile products and the need for SoC level differentiation imposes significant challenges on technology architecture and time-to-volume. We foresee a move towards much closer collaboration, in fact a virtual IDM-like model, on both technical and business levels. With daunting technical challenges like 3D stacking, 450mm fabs, new transistor architectures, multi-patterning, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, collaboration - early, often and deep - is really the only practical approach given the cost and complexities involved. Early eco-system enablement with accurate models and silicon proven IP ensures first pass design success, which is an important step for faster Time-to-volume (TTV). We refer to this close collaborative model as Foundry 2.0.