Globalfoundries, a spinoff of Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) manufacturing arm, added its first customer beside AMD: STMicroelectronics NV.
Under its agreement with STMicroelectronics, Globalfoundries will make semiconductors for wireless devices and consumer electronics, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said in a statement. Production will start next year. STMicroelectronics is Europe’s largest chip company, supplying electronics for phones and set-top boxes.
The contract is the first step in Globalfoundries chief executive officer Doug Grose’s plan to make his company a rival to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), the chip industry’s biggest contract manufacturers. Globalfoundries, which is backed by the Abu Dhabi government, will continue to make processors for AMD.
Globalfoundries became an independent company in March.
It has two plants in Germany and is building another factory in Saratoga County, New York.
The company is getting an investment from the Abu Dhabi government of as much as US$6 billion.
AMD, which competes with Intel Corp in the market for personal-computer microprocessors, announced the spinoff plan with Abu Dhabi in October. Globalfoundries has assumed about US$1.2 billion of AMD’s debt as part of the transaction.
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