Physics / mechanism
22FDX is GlobalFoundries’ 22nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) platform. The transistor channel sits in a thin undoped silicon layer over a buried oxide, so the channel is fully depleted in operation without the fin geometry used by FinFET nodes. GlobalFoundries positions the platform within a “feature-rich, not node-leading” specialty-foundry strategy rather than as a density-scaling node ref.
The distinguishing feature for system designers is the embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) portfolio built on top of the platform. Embedded MRAM is a productised offering on 22FDX: spin-transfer-torque MRAM with a perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction, technology licensed from Everspin, available as custom macros from 2 Mb to 32 Mb, surviving 260 °C solder reflow and specified for more than 10 years retention at 125 °C ref. The macro is a binary bit-cell optimised for bistable switching, retention and endurance, and is positioned as a replacement for flash and SRAM in code and working-memory roles ref. eMRAM on 22FDX entered production in February 2020, built in Dresden.
The pull toward eNVM on this platform comes from the embedded flash scaling wall. 28/22nm is the last node for embedded flash, which requires 6 to 8 extra masks against roughly 3 for MRAM; the constraint is mask-count economics rather than pure physics, and it is the stated reason foundries and IDMs are moving to MRAM, RRAM and FeRAM. GlobalFoundries’ public eNVM portfolio spans eMRAM, ReRAM and flash across FDX, FinFET, BCD and other platforms, with the offering framed around always-on, offline-inference-capable IoT edge devices requiring deterministic wake-up and low latency ref.
Competitive landscape
Evidence base
Frontier (open questions)
Synthesised 2026-08-31 from 5 KB sources by the resynth pipeline; citations are KB source slugs.