Globalfoundries Inc, which recently merged with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd, anticipates a “strong” recovery in the next four to five quarters, chief executive officer Doug Grose said.
“The foundry industry is growing faster than the overall semiconductor industry,” Grose said at a press event in Singapore yesterday.
Demand for chips is being driven by communications and consumer devices, the fastest growing segment in the technology sector, said Chia Song Hwee (謝松輝), chief operating officer of Globalfoundries.
Globalfoundries, controlled by Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Investment Co, plans to expand production of 300mm wafers to 1.6 million a year by 2014, it said in a statement yesterday. Also, the addition of capacity for 2.2 million 200mm wafers annually will bring the total output to 5.8 million such wafers, the company said.
Abu Dhabi’s ATIC completed the S$2.5 billion (US$1.8 billion) Chartered Semiconductor purchase last month and combined it with Globalfoundries, creating a challenger to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s two biggest makers of customized chips.
“We want to provide a real competition to TSMC,” Grose said.
It plans to do that by rolling out more advanced wafer manufacturing technologies.
Globalfoundries said it will expand its Fab 1 facility in Dresden, Germany, and the Fab 7 plant in Singapore. It will also build a new 30mm facility in Saratoga County, New York, called Fab 8.
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