GlobalFoundries announces new Singapore plant

SINGAPORE — U.S.-headquartered semiconductor maker GlobalFoundries introduced Tuesday that it will create a new fabrication plant in Singapore to meet up with the unprecedented international need for chips.

The new facility will be developed in partnership with the Singapore Economic Enhancement Board and with co-investments from fully commited buyers, GlobalFoundries explained. Extra than $4 billion will be invested into the development, according to the company.

“Our new facility in Singapore will aid fast-escalating finish-marketplaces in the automotive, 5G mobility and protected product segments with extensive-time period consumer agreements by now in spot,” GlobalFoundries CEO Tom Caulfield explained in a assertion.

A worldwide shortage of semiconductor microchips is resulting in havoc, delaying motor vehicle manufacturing and impacting functions at some of the most significant shopper electronics companies.

A virtual groundbreaking ceremony for the plant was attended by Singapore’s Transport Minister S Iswaran as very well as Mubadala Expenditure Enterprise Handling Director and Group CEO Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, between other people.

Mubadala, a United Arab Emirates point out expense company, owns GlobalFoundries.

“The semiconductor marketplace is a critical pillar of Singapore’s producing sector, and
GlobalFoundries’ new fab investment decision is testomony to Singapore’s attractiveness as a world node for superior producing and innovation,” Beh Swan Gin, chairman of the Singapore Financial Progress Board mentioned in a assertion.

Semiconductors are critical factors that electric power all forms of electronics, from smartphones to computer systems to the brake sensors in autos. Their generation entail a sophisticated community of firms that layout the chips, firms that manufacture them as perfectly as those people that source the know-how, products and equipment to do so.

GlobalFoundries is a so-identified as “pure” foundry, with factories in the U.S., Germany and Singapore. Foundries are providers that are contracted by semiconductor firms to construct chips. GlobalFoundries manufactures semiconductors designed by the likes of AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom.

The worldwide chip lack has highlighted the value of foundries, which are investing billions in new generation lines and upgraded devices to meet the surge in desire.

Taiwan Semiconductor Producing Business, or TSMC, is the world’s greatest foundry by industry share and earnings, according to TrendForce. It has about 56% market place share, adopted by Samsung (18%), UMC (7%) and GlobalFoundries (7%).

Semiconductor designers and brands are making an attempt to make chips lesser and improved. At the moment, only TSMC and Samsung have the skill to manufacture the most innovative chips.

For his portion, Caulfield instructed CNBC this 12 months that GlobalFoundries is setting up to spend $1.4 billion in its foundries to tackle the scarcity. The enterprise options to extend potential at all its manufacturing web-sites.

— CNBC’s Kif Leswing contributed to this report.