GlobalFoundries Inc, in which Abu Dhabi owns a majority stake, yesterday said it planned to spend an additional US$3 billion to boost leading-edge capacities over the next few years to meet rising customer demand and capture a bigger market share.
That would add to the contract chipmaker’s capital spending this year between US$2.7 billion and US$2.8 billion. Investment company Advanced Technology Investment Co (ATIC), wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi emirate, holds about 68 percent of GlobalFoundries, while US chipmaker AMD holds the rest.
The new investment came as larger competitors Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) said they were unable to build enough capacity to match a strong rebound in customer demand amid an improving global economy.
However, GlobalFoundries said at the moment it has no plan to acquire chipmakers such as UMC to expand capacity overnight, as some had speculated, after acquiring money-losing Singaporean contract chipmaker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc (特許) last year.
“We see a tremendous demand that is factually rising across many, many different nodes from 0.13 [micron], 0.18 [micron] all the way down to 65 nanometer,” GlobalFoundries CEO Douglas Grose said. “The industry is in recovery. The foundry industry is growing faster than the overall semiconductor industry on a year-on-year base.”
Rising demand from integrated device manufacturing companies and fabless companies would be one of the driving forces, Grose said.
GlobalFoundries also intends to enhance its market position through capacity expansion.
The chipmaker has made massive “investment for capacity and technology ... It’s very important that we continue to drive that growth,” said ATIC chief executive Ibrahim Ajami, when asked by the Taipei Times whether it would stick to its goal of capturing a 30 percent share by 2012, tracking only behind TSMC, which has a 49 percent share.
With the new investments, GlobalFoundries plans to boost a plant in Dresden, Germany, where the chipmaker would make 80,000 300mm wafers a month next year, up from 60,000 wafers on advanced technologies, including 45nm and 40nm processes.
The chipmaker also planned to expand monthly capacity to 60,000 wafers a month at a New York plant, which is under construction, from 42,000 12-inch wafers.
“The capacity expansion at the chipmaker’s New York factory will aggravate oversupply, which is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of this year as demand starts slackening, while new capacities from TSMC and UMC will come out,” said Jonah Cheng (程正樺), a semiconductor industry analyst with UBS Securities Pte Ltd.
GlobalFoundries’ New York plant is scheduled to begin mass production in the second half of next year and the extra capacity would come on line in 2013, mostly for producing chips with next-generation technologies such as 22 nm and 20 nm.
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