TrendForce's latest research reveals that the global foundry industry exhibited a polarized trend in 4Q24. Advanced process nodes benefited from strong demand in AI servers, flagship smartphone application processors (APs), and new PC platforms, driving high-value wafer shipments. This growth helped offset the slowdown in mature process demand, allowing the top 10 foundries to achieve nearly 10% QoQ revenue growth, reaching US$38.48 billion, and marking another industry record.

TrendForce notes that new U.S. trade tariffs under the Trump administration have started affecting the foundry industry. A surge in recent orders for TVs, PCs, and notebooks bound for the U.S. in 4Q24 is expected to extend into 1Q25. Additionally, China's consumer subsidy program—introduced in late 2024—has spurred early inventory restocking among upstream customers. Combined with persistent demand for TSMC's AI-related chips and advanced packaging, these factors suggest that despite Q1 being a seasonally weak quarter, foundry revenue will only decline slightly.

GlobalFoundries (GF) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) today announced a new master research agreement to jointly pursue advancements and innovations for enhancing the performance and efficiency of critical semiconductor technologies. The collaboration will be led by MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) and GF's research and development team, GF Labs.

With an initial research focus on AI and other applications, the first projects are expected to leverage GF's differentiated silicon photonics technology, which monolithically integrates RF SOI, CMOS and optical features on a single chip to realize power efficiencies for datacenters, and GF's 22FDX platform, which delivers ultra-low power consumption for intelligent devices at the edge.

GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF), today announced preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2024.

"In the fourth quarter, the GF team delivered solid financial results that exceeded the Non-IFRS midpoint of the guidance ranges we provided in our November earnings release," said Dr. Thomas Caulfield, President and CEO of GF. "2024 presented a unique set of challenges for our industry, but thanks to our focus on operational excellence, we generated over $1 billion of Non-IFRS adjusted free cash flow. As we look to 2025, we are encouraged by our strong design win momentum across our end markets and product portfolio as we position GF for a growth year."

A change in leadership at GlobalFoundries could affect Intel's ongoing CEO hunt as Tim Breen will become GlobalFoundries' new CEO on April 28, 2025, while current CEO Thomas Caulfield will move to Executive Chairman. This switch has got people in the industry talking about whether Caulfield might play a role at Intel or its foundry operations in the future. Caulfield has done well at GlobalFoundries since 2018, he helped the company make money in 2019 by shifting away from making the newest chips to focus on making special semiconductors. This success happened without counting money from selling facilities to ON Semiconductor and Vanguard International Semiconductor.

However, some industry experts point out a possible weak spot in Caulfield's background. While he knows a lot about materials science and engineering, he doesn't have much experience designing integrated circuits, according to BITS&CHIPS. The timing matters a lot for Intel, which has some big tech goals coming up like their new Panther Lake processor set to come out in late 2025 and will use Intel's 18A process node. Both the 18A and 14A nodes need to succeed for Intel's manufacturing future to be strong. Bloomberg reported that Intel is currently focusing on external candidates for its CEO position, among the people under consideration are Marvel's CEO Matt Murphy and Lip-Bow Tan, former Cadence CEO and also a former member of Intel's board.

GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF) today announced preliminary financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024.

Key Third Quarter Financial Highlights

• Revenue of $1.739 billion
• Gross margin of 23.8% and Non-IFRS gross margin of 24.7%
• Operating margin of 10.6% and Non-IFRS operating margin of 13.6%
• Net income of $178 million and Non-IFRS net income of $229 million
• Non-IFRS adjusted EBITDA of $627 million
• Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $4.3 billion
• Year to date net cash provided by operating activities of $1,265 million and Non-IFRS adjusted free cash flow of $779 million

The latest TrendForce report reveals a notable 7.9% jump in 4Q23 revenue for the world's top ten semiconductor foundries, reaching $30.49 billion. This growth is primarily driven by sustained demand for smartphone components, such as mid and low-end smartphone APs and peripheral PMICs. The launch season for Apple's latest devices also significantly contributed, fueling shipments for the A17 chipset and associated peripheral ICs, including OLED DDIs, CIS, and PMICs. TSMC's premium 3 nm process notably enhanced its revenue contribution, pushing its global market share past the 60% threshold this quarter.

TrendForce remarks that 2023 was a challenging year for foundries, marked by high inventory levels across the supply chain, a weak global economy, and a slow recovery in the Chinese market. These factors led to a downward cycle in the industry, with the top ten foundries experiencing a 13.6% annual drop as revenue reached just $111.54 billion. Nevertheless, 2024 promises a brighter outlook, with AI-driven demand expected to boost annual revenue by 12% to $125.24 billion. TSMC, benefiting from steady advanced process orders, is poised to far exceed the industry average in growth.

GlobalFoundries (GF) announced today it has applied for U.S. CHIPS and Science Act Funding, with two full applications submitted to the CHIPS Program Office of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The submitted applications are for capacity expansion and modernization of GF's U.S. manufacturing facilities.

"As the leading manufacturer of essential semiconductors for the U.S. government, and a vital supplier to the automotive, aerospace and defense, IoT and other markets, GF has submitted our applications to the CHIPS Program Office to participate in the federal grants and investment tax credits enabled by the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act," said Steven Grasso, senior director of global government affairs at GF. "This federal support is critical for GF to continue growing its U.S. manufacturing footprint, strengthening U.S economic security, supply chain resiliency, and national defense."

GlobalFoundries (GF) today announced the appointment of Hui Peng Koh as vice president and general manager of the company's semiconductor manufacturing facility in Malta, New York. Building on her experience in leading the 1,200 strong engineering team in Malta for the last three years, Ms. Koh is stepping up to lead GF's most advanced U.S. fab that supports a wide range of customers. She succeeds long time GF executive and industry veteran Peter Benyon who will retire in early July 2023 after more than 40 years in the semiconductor industry including being part of the GF team since the acquisition of Chartered Semiconductor in 2011.

Ms. Koh, an accomplished leader with more than 23 years of semiconductor manufacturing experience, currently serves as vice president of manufacturing engineering at GF. Prior to her current role, she was the director of lithography and held various leadership positions at the company's Malta facility. Previously, she served in several technology development roles at GF's Singapore campus. Ms. Koh earned her master's degree in materials engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF) (Nasdaq: GFS) today announced preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.

Key Fourth Quarter Financial Highlights
Revenue of $2,101 million, up 14% year-over-year.
Gross margin of 29.6% and adjusted gross margin of 30.1%.
Net income of $668 million.
Adjusted EBITDA of $821 million.
Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $3,346 million.

STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, and GlobalFoundries Inc., a global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, today announced they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a new, jointly-operated 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing facility adjacent to ST's existing 300 mm facility in Crolles, France. This facility is targeted to ramp at full capacity by 2026, with up to 620,000 300 mm wafer per year production at full build-out (~42% ST and ~58% GF).

ST and GF are committed to building capacity for their European and global customer base. This new facility will support several technologies, in particular FD-SOI-based technologies, and will cover multiple variants. This includes GF's market leading FDX technology and ST's comprehensive technology roadmap down to 18 nm, which are expected to remain in high demand for Automotive, IoT, and Mobile applications for the next few decades. FD-SOI technology has origins in the Grenoble (France) area. It has been part of ST technology and product roadmap in its Crolles facility since the early beginnings, and it was later enabled with differentiation and commercialized for manufacturing at GF's Dresden facility. FD-SOI offers substantial benefits for designers and customers, including ultra-low power consumption as well as easier integration of additional features such as RF connectivity, mmWave and security.

AMD in its 8-K filing with the SEC, disclosed that it has updated its wafer supply agreement (WSA) with GlobalFoundries. Under the latest agreement, AMD commits to buy $2.1 billion worth wafers from GlobalFoundries between 2022 and 2025. The previous version of the WSA saw commitments up to 2024, and wafers worth $1.6 billion. The update hence adds another year and $500 million worth supply.

AMD currently sources 12 nm and 14 nm wafers from GlobalFoundries, which go into making cIOD and sIOD components in its processors, and motherboard chipsets. The move to extend the WSA indicates that the company may continue to use 12 nm-class I/O dies in its processors for the foreseeable future. It will be very interesting to see if 12 nm-class I/O dies make it to next-generation products such as "Genoa" and "Rapael," which integrate the latest IP blocks such as PCI-Express Gen 5 root-complexes, DDR5 memory controllers, and 3rd Gen Infinity Fabric. Processors with 12 nm I/O dies, such as "Milan" and "Vermeer" could be retired only by 2023-24, as AMD will use 2022 to spread across its next-gen product launches.

GlobalFoundries (GF ), a global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, today announced the commencement of its initial public offering of 55,000,000 ordinary shares, 33,000,000 of which are being offered by GF and 22,000,000 of which are being offered by GF's existing shareholder, Mubadala Investment Company PJSC, pursuant to a registration statement on Form F-1 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). The initial public offering price is currently expected to be between $42.00 and $47.00 per share. In connection with the offering, Mubadala expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 8,250,000 ordinary shares at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. GF has applied to list its ordinary shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "GFS."

Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and Credit Suisse are acting as active book-running managers for the proposed offering. Deutsche Bank Securities, HSBC and Jefferies are acting as additional book-running managers for the proposed offering. Baird, Cowen, Needham & Company, Raymond James, Wedbush Securities, Drexel Hamilton, Siebert Williams Shank and IMI - Intesa Sanpaolo are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering.

The European Processor Initiative (EPI) https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/, a project with 28 partners from 10 European countries, with the goal of making EU achieve independence in HPC chip technologies and HPC infrastructure, is proud to announce that EPAC 1.0 RISC-V Test Chip samples were delivered to EPI and initial tests of their operation were successful.

One key segment of EPI activities is to develop and demonstrate fully European-grown processor IPs based on the RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture, providing power-efficient and high-throughput accelerator cores named EPAC (European Processor Accelerators).

GlobalFoundries (GF), the global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, today announced its expansion plans for its most advanced manufacturing facility in upstate New York over the coming years. These plans include immediate investments to address the global chip shortage at its existing Fab 8 facility as well as construction of a new fab on the same campus that will double the site's capacity.

The announcement was made as the company convened leaders from government and industry to progress the national discussion around solving U.S. semiconductor supply chain challenges. CEO Tom Caulfield was joined by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo, former Pentagon officials, and executives from leading companies throughout the semiconductor supply chain.

GF will invest $1 billion to immediately add an additional 150,000 wafers per year within its existing fab to help address the global chip shortage. Following that, GF plans to construct a new fab that will create more than 1,000 new direct high-tech jobs and thousands more indirect jobs including high-paying construction jobs for the region. Following the successful investment model of Fab 8, GF is planning to fund the new facility through private-public partnerships including customers, federal and state investments. This new capacity will serve the growing demand for secure, feature-rich chips needed by high-growth markets including automotive, 5G connectivity and the Internet of Things. The facility will also support national security requirements for a secure supply chain.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ), the global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, today announced it is expanding its global manufacturing footprint with the construction of a new fab on its Singapore campus. In partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board and with co-investments from committed customers, GF's more than US $4B (S$5B) investment will play an integral role in meeting the growing demand for the company's industry-leading manufacturing technologies and services to enable companies worldwide to develop and scale their business.

In a virtual groundbreaking ceremony, Singapore Minister for Transport and Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations S. Iswaran and Mubadala Investment Company Managing Director and Group CEO H.E. Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, were joined by: UAE Ambassador to Singapore H.E. Jamal Abdulla Al Suwaidi; Singapore Ambassador to the UAE H.E. Kamal R Vaswani; Singapore Economic Development Board Managing Director Chng Kai Fong; GF Board Chairman Ahmed Yahia Al Idrissi; along with GF executives including CEO Tom Caulfield; CFO David Reeder; SVP and Head of Global Operations KC Ang; SVP of Global Sales Juan Cordovez; VP of Human Resource for APAC and International Fabs Janice Lee; and VP of Technology Development in Singapore Dr. Soh Yun Siah.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ), the global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, and GlobalWafers Co., Ltd. (GWC), one of the top silicon wafer manufacturers in the world, today announced an $800 million agreement to add 300 mm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer manufacturing and expand existing 200 mm SOI wafer production at GWC's MEMC facility in O'Fallon, Missouri.

The silicon wafers produced by GWC are key input materials for semiconductors and an integral part of GF's supply chain. The wafers are used in GF's multi-billion dollar manufacturing facilities, or fabs, where they are used to manufacture the computer chips that are pervasive and vital to the global economy. Today's announcement expands GF's domestic silicon wafer supply from the United States.

Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX), a leading aerospace and defense technology company, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ), the global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, will collaborate to develop and commercialize a new gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) semiconductor that will enable game-changing radio frequency performance for 5G and 6G mobile and wireless infrastructure applications.

Under the agreement, Raytheon Technologies will license its proprietary gallium nitride on silicon technology and technical expertise to GF, which will develop the new semiconductor at its Fab 9 facility in Burlington, Vermont. Gallium nitride is a unique material used to build high-performance semiconductors that can handle significant heat and power levels. This makes it ideal to handle 5G and 6G wireless signals, which require higher performance levels than legacy wireless systems.

AMD in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), revealed that its wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries has been amended. Under the new terms, AMD places orders for wafers from GlobalFoundries up to 2024, with purchase targets set for each year leading up to 2024. Beyond meeting these targets, AMD is free from all other exclusivity commitments. The agreement was previously amended in January 2019, setting annual purchase targets for 2019, 2020, and 2021, while beginning a de-coupling between AMD and GlobalFoundries. This enabled the company to source 7 nm (or smaller) chips, such as CCDs and GPUs, from other foundries, such as TSMC, while keeping GlobalFoundries exclusive for 12 nm (or larger) nodes.

The updated wafer supply agreement unlocks many possibilities for AMD. For starters, it can finally build a next-generation sIOD (server I/O die) on a more efficient node than GlobalFoundries 12LP, such as TSMC 7 nm. This transition to 7 nm will be needed as the next-gen "Genoa" EPYC processor could feature future I/O standards such as DDR5 memory and PCI-Express Gen 5, and the switching fabric for these could be too power-hungry on 12 nm. The "Zen 4" CPU core complex dies (CCDs) of "Genoa" are expected to be built on TSMC 5 nm.

PsiQuantum, the leading quantum computing company focused on delivering a 1 million-plus qubit quantum computer, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ), the global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, today announced a major breakthrough in their partnership to build the world's first full-scale commercial quantum computer. The two companies are now manufacturing the silicon photonic and electronic chips that form the foundation of the Q1 system, the first system milestone in PsiQuantum's roadmap to deliver a commercially viable quantum computer with one million qubits (the basic unit of quantum information) and beyond.

PsiQuantum and GF have now demonstrated a world-first ability to manufacture core quantum components, such as single-photon sources and single-photon detectors, with precision and in volume, using the standard manufacturing processes of GF's world-leading semiconductor fab. The companies have also installed proprietary production and manufacturing equipment in two of GF's 300 mm fabs to produce thousands of Q1 silicon photonic chips at its facility in upstate New York, and state-of-the-art electronic control chips at its Fab 1 facility in Dresden, Germany.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF), the global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, announced today at an onsite event with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that it will relocate its headquarters to Malta, New York, the site of Fab 8, the company's most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility—as the company positions itself for growth, strengthens partnerships with customers and recruits new talent. This change is effective today.

GF has invested more than $15 billion in its Fab 8 facility over the last decade to support innovation and manufacturing capacity. In 2021, the company is doubling its planned investment to expand global capacity, with $500 million targeted for Malta, NY alone.

The move from GF's previous headquarters to its state-of-the-art fab in New York is part of the company's commitment to address the soaring global chip demand, with a focus on semiconductor manufacturing innovation. GF will maintain a substantial presence in Santa Clara, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, where many of GF's leading U.S. customers and ecosystem partners are based.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ), the global leader in specialty semiconductor manufacturing, and Bosch will partner to develop and manufacture next-generation automotive radar technology.

Bosch chose GF as its partner to develop a mmWave automotive radar system-on-chip (SoC) for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) applications, manufactured using GF's 22FDX RF solution. ADAS applications help drivers stay safe by keeping a vehicle in the correct lane, warning of collisions, initiating emergency braking, assisting with parking, and more.

Globalfoundries has announced they are in the early stages of a massive $1.4 billion investment in their manufacturing capabilities, which aims to increase overall production of semiconductor chips. One third of this development investment will be pre-paid by Globalfoundries' customers, who by investing this way, are also pre-allocating Globalfoundries' future supply - it's a way for the company to receive funds for not-yet-produced wafers, enabling it to proceed with these expansion plans. The company usually reserves $700 million yearly for capacity expansions and technology improvements, so this $1.4 billion figure essentially doubles that.

That doubling comes at a time where existing capacity throughout the semiconductor industry is showing not to be sufficient for global demand. The plans will see Globalfoundries increase its wafer production capability by 13% this year, and 20% in 2022. The increased funding for developmental expenses will be allocated equally between the company's three manufacturing plants already installed in Dresden, Malta (New York) and Singapore. Globalfoundries' 2020 revenue ended up at $5.7 billion, a cutback from 2017's $6.176 billion. The company, however, projects its revenue to increase 9-10% in 2021 due to the current unprecedented demand for its fabrication technologies. The company is also looking to capitalize on this demand in another way: by bringing its IPO forward. Where before the company planned to go public in 2022 or even 2023, the increased current demand and prospective YoY growth places the company in a good place for such a move.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF), the world's leading specialty foundry, today announced a strategic partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to provide a secure and reliable supply of semiconductor solutions manufactured at GF's Fab 8 in Malta, New York—the company's most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility. These semiconductor chips will be used in some of the DoD's most sensitive applications for land, air, sea, and space systems.

Under the agreement, GF will provide a supply of chips built at Fab 8 on its differentiated 45 nm SOI platform. The agreement is made possible by Fab 8's compliance with U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and highly restrictive Export Control Classification Numbers under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

The new supply agreement builds upon the longstanding partnership between the DoD and GF to provide chips for defense, aerospace, and other sensitive applications. GF currently supplies the DoD with chips manufactured at GF's other on-shore facilities, Fab 10 in East Fishkill, New York, and Fab 9 in Burlington, Vermont.

DIALOG SEMICONDUCTOR, a leading provider of battery and power management, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low energy (BLE) and Industrial edge computing solutions and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ), the world's leading specialty foundry, today announced that they have entered into an agreement in which Dialog licenses its Conductive Bridging RAM (CBRAM) technology to GLOBALFOUNDRIES. The resistive ram (ReRAM)-based technology was pioneered by Adesto Technologies which was recently acquired by Dialog Semiconductor in 2020. GLOBALFOUNDRIES will first offer Dialog's CBRAM as an embedded, non-volatile memory (NVM) option on its 22FDX platform, with the plan to extend to other platforms.

Dialog's proprietary and production proven CBRAM technology is a low power NVM solution designed to enable a range of applications from IoT and 5G connectivity to artificial intelligence (AI). Low power consumption, high read/write speeds, reduced manufacturing costs and tolerance for harsh environments make CBRAM particularly suitable for consumer, medical, and select industrial and automotive applications. Furthermore, CBRAM technology enables cost-effective embedded NVM for advanced technology nodes required for products in these markets.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ), the world's leading specialty foundry, announced today at its Global Technology Conference the next generation of its FDXTM platform, 22FDX+, to meet the ever-growing need for higher performance and ultra-low power requirements of connected devices. GF's industry-leading 22FDX (22 nm FD-SOI) platform has realized $4.5 billion in design wins, with more than 350 million chips shipped to customers around the world.

GF's new 22FDX+ builds on the company's 22FDX platform, offering a broader set of features that provide high performance, ultra-low power, and specialty features and capabilities for the newest generation of designs. The differentiated offering will further empower customers to create chips that are specifically optimized for Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, automotive, and satellite communications applications.