A robotic arm strikes 300 mm silicon semiconductor wafers inside a sorting machine in a cleanroom at a Globalfoundries Inc. semiconductor fabrication plant.
Liesa Johannssen | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
U.S.-headquartered GlobalFoundries introduced Tuesday the opening of its $4 billion growth fabrication plant in Singapore because the contract chipmaker expects “development in demand for important semiconductor chips.”
“I am assured that over the subsequent decade, this business will double once more,” Thomas Caulfield, president and CEO of GlobalFoundries, instructed CNBC in an interview forward of Tuesday’s opening.
Some catalysts embody “new and essential purposes, the entire AI and the way that can change society” — which would require chips and create demand, he defined.
“Automotive appears to be staying sturdy. Cloud for synthetic intelligence appears to be sturdy. Industrial is holding in there. Something client associated continues to be weak,” Caulfield stated Monday.
Foundries are firms which can be contracted by semiconductor companies to fabricate chips. GlobalFoundries makes semiconductors designed by the likes of Qualcomm, MediaTek and NXP Semiconductors, and serves roughly 200 clients globally.
Its chips are present in smartphones, laptops, vehicles, digital actuality techniques, online game consoles, good audio system, and are additionally utilized in AI and 5G.
Singapore provides 11% of the world’s semiconductors, in response to the Singapore Semiconductor Trade Affiliation.
Partnership with Singapore
GlobalFoundries is the world’s third-largest foundry by income behind TSMC and Samsung, in response to market intelligence supplier TrendForce.
The 23,000-square meter fab facility in Singapore will enhance the corporate’s world manufacturing footprint and enhance its capability to serve clients throughout its manufacturing websites in three continents, the press launch stated.
“As Singapore’s most superior semiconductor facility up to now, the growth fab will produce a further 450,000 wafers (300mm) yearly, elevating GlobalFoundries Singapore’s general capability to roughly 1.5 million wafers (300mm) annually,” it added.
GlobalFoundries acquired Singapore’s Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing and took over its fabs in 2010.
The positioning’s present manufacturing capability is 720,000 (300mm) wafers and 692,000 (200mm) wafers a yr. Such wafers are the essential materials for manufacturing chips.
The brand new facility will create about 1,000 “high-value” jobs in Singapore, of which 95% will embody tools technicians, course of technicians and engineers, the corporate stated. GlobalFoundries presently hires roughly 4,500 staff on the Singapore web site.
GlobalFoundries introduced in June 2021 the development of a brand new fab on its current Singapore campus, in partnership with the city-state’s Financial Growth Board, with a purpose to meet world demand for semiconductor chips at the moment.
The next June, the Nasdaq-listed semiconductor producer stated its first device had been moved into the Singapore facility. It additionally has manufacturing services within the U.S. and Germany.
“GlobalFoundries had a protracted partnership with the Singapore authorities. The Singapore authorities has industrial insurance policies about bringing excessive tech manufacturing, excessive tech innovation to the area. And it is why you see so many nice firms having manufacturing right here,” Caulfield instructed CNBC’s Sri Jegarajah.
“What occurs now’s when different nations understand how essential semiconductor manufacturing is to their area, for sovereign safety, for provide chain, for financial safety, they too [will] need to have semiconductor manufacturing, and that they should modify their industrial insurance policies to assist create that aggressive panorama the place manufacturing and people areas are economically aggressive,” he added.
The growth may even implement AI instruments to enhance productiveness corresponding to wafer sample recognition to auto-classify and spot defects in wafers, stated GlobalFoundries.
Correction quickly?
Smartphone and PC makers are presently grappling with extra inventories of reminiscence chips after stockpiling them throughout the pandemic-induced increase. As inflation soared, customers have been chopping again on these items and costs for reminiscence chips have fallen.
The likes of Taiwanese semiconductor foundry TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung have reported declines in second-quarter revenue as weak demand for reminiscence chips continued.
“We have seen within the second quarter of this yr, inventories at semiconductor firms nonetheless climb however at a a lot muted fee,” stated Caulfield. “The excellent news is we have additionally seen the stock additional down the provision chain, corresponding to system firms, begin to go down. And so possibly there’s a little little bit of a glimmer right here that stock is beginning to right.”
Nonetheless, world inflation needs to be underneath management first earlier than rates of interest can come down and client spending will be wholesome once more, significantly in China, he stated.
