GlobalFoundries (United States)

Semiconductor manufacturing is rapidly expanding alongside tightening environmental regulations and increasing public concern around per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Because of their unique chemical properties, PFAS are used across numerous processes in semiconductor manufacturing. Given process complexity and lengthy development timelines for alternatives, eliminating PFAS use in this industry is not currently feasible. Developing practical technologies for PFAS waste management is therefore critical but uniquely challenging in semiconductor manufacturing due to the nature of waste streams (parts-per-billion PFAS concentrations, complex backgrounds including hundreds of chemicals, prevalence of ultrashort PFAS, total stream volumes up to 35,000 m3 per day per facility, and distribution across gas, liquid, and solid phases) and significant constraints on space and systems redesign. This review describes recent developments and key questions that must be addressed to develop impactful and commercially viable detection and abatement methods for PFAS waste management in semiconductor manufacturing. Integrating these technologies into compact, high-performance systems and testing them under realistic conditions (complex PFAS mixtures, high fluoride/ionic strength, pH 6-11, low contact time, process variability) through industrial collaborations is essential for scalable, cost-effective solutions. Research addressing semiconductor industry-specific PFAS waste is essential to enable environmental compliance while supporting the continued growth of semiconductor manufacturing.

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is driven by the secretion of autoantibodies from pathogenic B cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-expressing plasma cells. In this phase 2b randomized, controlled, double-blind trial, we evaluated Descartes-08, an autologous BCMA-directed mRNA chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy, in patients with generalized MG (gMG). Patients (n = 26) were randomly allocated to receive once-weekly intravenous infusions of Descartes-08 (n = 15) or placebo (n = 11) over 6 weeks. The primary endpoint was a ≥5-point improvement in the MG Composite (MGC) score at month 3. Secondary endpoints included the mean change from baseline in MGC, MG Activities of Daily Living (MG-ADL) and Quantitative MG (QMG) scores by month 12. At month 3, the proportion of patients achieving a ≥5-point improvement in the MGC score was significantly higher for those treated with Descartes-08 compared to placebo in the overall population (66.7% (n = 10/15) versus 27.3% (n = 3/11), P = 0.0472) and in a subpopulation of those positive for autoantibodies to the acetylcholine receptor (63.6% (n = 7/11) versus 12.5% (n = 1/8), P = 0.0258). For patients treated with Descartes-08, the changes from baseline in mean MGC, MG-ADL and QMG scores at month 4 were -7.1, -5.5 and -4.8, respectively, with 83.0% of patients achieving a sustained and clinically meaningful response at month 12. Notably, 33.0% of patients achieved minimum symptom expression (MSE) (MG-ADL score ≤1) by month 6, which was sustained through month 12. Among biologic-naive patients, 55.60% achieved MSE by month 6, which was maintained through month 12 without additional treatment. Descartes-08 was generally safe and well tolerated. Infusion-related reactions were the most common adverse events reported (Descartes-08, 80.0% (n = 16/20); placebo, 56.3% (n = 9/16)). In summary, a single course of six once-weekly infusions of Descartes-08 was well tolerated and resulted in sustained clinically meaningful responses among patients with gMG. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04146051 .

This paper presents a Semi-empirical Reliability Model for Hot-Carrier Degradation (HCD) in FinFET LDMOS devices. Unlike planar LDMOS, FinFET LDMOS exhibits non-saturating HCD over prolonged operation, due to its distinct three-dimensional geometry, which affects electric field distribution and carrier transport mechanisms. Traditional degradation models, such as the time slope exponent and bond dissociation (BD) approaches do not adequately capture this unique degradation due to the 3D structural complexities of FinFET LDMOS. To address this limitation, an enhanced model to account for HCD in FinFET LDMOS is introduced in this paper, significantly improving predictive accuracy for device lifetime. Hot-carrier Degradation for FinFET LDMOS is also characterized with variation in drain to source stress bias and number of fins (NFIN). When all other design parameters remain same, HCD increases with an increase in the drain-to-source stress voltage and reduces with an increase in the number of fins (NFIN).

Plasma-induced damage (PID) is a major cause of yield loss in standard semiconductor fabrication, typically driven by plasma charging during dielectric or metal etching process. This kind of damage usually hits devices with gate dielectrics, where accumulated charge leads to dielectric breakdown. To prevent it, design rules based on metal-to-gate area ratios are applied. This study examines a less explored failure mode known as reverse antenna charging. Here, the damage doesn’t occur at the gate dielectric but within the back-end-of-line (BEOL) interconnects, away from the front-end-of-line (FEOL) devices. Phenomenon was first observed in product and then test structures were built for thick oxide gate dielectric devices through a common BEOL interconnect path strategy. Gates were routed through CA, M1, V1, M2, V2, and M3 layers, with failures observed at the M1-V1 levels for structures connected to thick gate devices when discharge paths were intentionally designed to be weak. Under these conditions, reverse charging effects were successfully isolated and reproduced, resulting in hard open failures. The results confirm that yield loss can still occur even when thick gate devices are designed according to existing antenna rule strategies. This points to a failure mechanism that current rules did not address. As a result, a need is identified for existing design strategies to be revised to account for reverse antenna charging and its impact on BEOL interconnect reliability.

We introduce machine learning-based solutions for differentiating wafers fabricated using trusted and untrusted mask-sets based on the typical metrology or wafer acceptance tests collected during semiconductor manufacturing and testing. Our methods leverage the systematic nature of process variation and capture the subtle causality between mask modifications and either physical dimensions or electrical characteristics of the produced silicon, which can then be used for the purpose of wafer-level mask-set attestation. Effectiveness of our solutions is demonstrated on a dataset of inline and e-test measurements from 8000 wafers fabricated with multiple variants of a mask-set in the GlobalFoundries 12LP FinFET technology node.

Electrical discharge plasmas rapidly degrade short-chain(SC) per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the presence of sacrificialsurfactants. These surfactants facilitate the transport of PFAS tothe plasma-liquid interface through electrostatic and hydrophobicinteractions, where PFAS and surfactants are ultimately degraded.This study investigates the degradation of perfluorobutanesulfonate(PFBS) by nonthermal plasma, both in the absence and presence of quaternaryalkyl trimethylammonium surfactants: octyl-, dodecyl-, and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (C8TAB, C12TAB, and C16TAB, respectively).Advanced analytical techniques, including targeted, suspect, and nontargetedliquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), gas chromatography(GC-MS headspace), and ion chromatography (IC), were employed to identifythe degradation byproducts of PFBS and the surfactants. Suspect andnontargeted analyses (NTA) revealed the formation of shorter-chainperfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs), products from H/F and OH/F exchangereactions, fluorinated ketones, fluorinated alcohols, unsaturatedfluorinated compounds, and shorter-chain perfluorosulfonic acids (PFSAs);however, the last has been ascribed to contamination in the PFBS reagent.Notably, the degradation of PFBS, both in the absence and presenceof surfactants, produced a nearly identical set of byproducts. Basedon these newly identified byproducts, a series of degradation pathwayshas been proposed, involving solvated electrons and OH radicals asthe primary reactive species. This study provides critical insightsinto the complex mechanisms and pathways of PFBS degradation duringnonthermal plasma treatment. The findings have significant implicationsfor optimizing plasma technologies and other PFAS treatment methods,with the proposed pathways expected to be relevant for PFAS degradationby technologies that utilize oxidative and nonoxidative species.

This work presents a novel configurable hysteresis Schmitt trigger for Automotive Grade-1 General-Purpose InputOutput (GPIO) applications. The proposed circuit is designed using the GF 22FDX™ process technology. The Schmitt trigger thresholds, <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$V_{H}$</tex> and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$V_{L}$</tex>, can be configured either through externally applied control voltages or via internally generated ones. The hysteresis range is adjustable from 300 mV up to 1.5 V, with the observed <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$V_{H}$</tex> and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$V_{L}$</tex> values being 1.25-3.1 V and 0.3-1.0 V, respectively. This proposed circuit is compact, with an area measuring <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$29.54 \times 18.925 \mu \mathrm{m}^{2}$</tex>. The dynamic power consumed is <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$280 \mu W$</tex>, whereas the leakage power is <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1.25 n W$</tex>.

In this work, we present the recent advancements in the industry-standard surface potential-based BSIM-SOI compact model, designed for state-of-the-art SOI devices. The model incorporates a surface potential-based core that helps in the accurate modeling of partially depleted (PD), fully depleted (FD), and dynamically depleted (DD) regions, maintaining the inherent symmetry of the device. Enabled by a robust surface potential coupling relation, the model is well-suited for system-on-chip (SoC) designs, covering analog, digital, and RF applications. Key improvements include an updated effective mobility model, independent body resistances for the primary FET and process-induced parasitic opposite-type-gate FETs, decoupling of core I-V and C-V models, and integration of low-frequency shot noise for floating-body structures. These enhancements significantly improve the model's accuracy in capturing real hardware data. Additionally, proposed speed optimizations enhance the model's efficiency, making it more suitable for high-performance simulations.

In this study, we are depositing hafnium silicate films using Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) technique with hafnium tetrachloride (HfCl4) and silicon tetrachloride (SiCl4) as precursor and water (H2O) as oxidant. We are analyzing impact of variation in number of ALD cycles on film thickness. We are also studying the impact of SiCl<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</inf> vessel temperature and chamber susceptor temperature on hafnium silicate film thickness. The hafnium silicate films were sent to Decoupled Plasma Nitridation (DPN) chamber to form HfSiON followed by Post Nitridation Annealing (PNA) to observe the effect on thickness, Hf-concentration, SiO-bond percentage, N concentration, and O concentration with variation in post nitridation anneal temperature and pressure. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) depth profile data was obtained for annealed and unannealed films. These process parameter modulations help in better understanding of the reaction mechanisms in ALD and PNA.

Purpose:Many preclinical hypotheses, including reciprocal feedback activation between the androgen receptor (AR)–PI3K pathway in PTEN loss and AR signaling inhibitor–induced “BRCAness” regardless of BRCA1/2 status, have struggled to translate into clinical benefit for patients with metastatic prostate cancer. This gap in translatability, particularly in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), may stem from a limited understanding of prostate cancer evolution. A key challenge is the correlation between early-stage tumor genetics and mCRPC. By examining clinical, genomic, and molecular changes over time, we aimed to refine clinical trial design.Experimental Design:Using a comprehensive dataset from electronic health records with genomic profiling, a shift in the prognostic value of biomarkers from metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) to mCRPC was observed. Additionally, genomic and transcriptomic analyses of primary tumors from the IPATential150 trial and mCRPC samples from the Stand Up To Cancer cohort examined the changing AR–PI3K signaling correlation.Results:PI3K–AKT pathway alterations lost their prognostic significance in later stages. Although AR and PI3K–AKT signaling were inversely correlated in primary tumors, this relationship was disrupted in mCRPC, independent of PIK3CA/AKT1/PTEN status. We identified broad transcriptional rewiring associated with AR signaling, increasing tumor heterogeneity. Improving the understanding of early-stage disease, we identified a high-risk mHSPC subset enriched for AR alterations. Additionally, in a subset of patients, AR ligand-binding domain mutations preceded amplification, potentially leading to preferential amplification of the mutant AR form.Conclusions:Our findings underscore the dynamic nature of prostate tumor biology and emphasize the need for translational research to validate preclinical hypotheses in clinically relevant settings, ultimately improving trial design and therapeutic strategies.