Industry Expert Blogs

China has always been an intriguing semiconductor puzzle that very few companies have solved and now it is much more puzzling with the current political meandering. The GlobalFoundries vision of having foundries all over the world was very appealing to me back in 2009 and even more so today. Remember, China consumes more than half of the semiconductors produced each year and mobile devices (wireless and battery powered) are a very big part of that.

When GlobalFoundries first announced the joint fab agreement in Chengdu China it was targeted at 180/130nm which was a head scratcher. I remember saying, "Why not FD-SOI?!?!" It is a perfect fit for China (low power / low cost). The answer was mostly political because China was set on a “traditional” fab that was “TSMC like”. Follow the leader, right? I think GF was happy to get a fab agreement in China but the long term goal was always FD-SOI.

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