In the latest look down its road map, Globalfoundries claims it is shipping thousands of 32nm wafers a week, gearing up multiple 28nm offerings for 2012 and planning first customer tape outs using a planar 20nm process at the end of next year.

Globalfoundries will leverage Intermolecular's high productivity combinatorial (HPC) technology to accelerate the creation of process modules that will be integrated into Globalfoundries manufacturing lines worldwide.

Management changes recently announced at Globalfoundries are related to problems with 32nm chip yield and the slowness of creating a foundry-like operation at Globalfoundries' Dresden facility in Germany, according to analysts at Nomura Equity Research.

Chip manufacturing firm Globalfoundries will begin construction of a new manufacturing plant in Abu Dhabi next year, the majority stakeholder of the company said on Friday.

Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) plans to increase its stake in the Globalfoundries microchip business to over 90% by the end of 2011, according to a senior executive. ATIC's stake rises as it pours investment into Globalfoundries, in which it last year acquired a 65.8% stake for US$2.1 billion.

Globalfoundries is believed to be working on similar technology but is about two years behind Intel to bring it into the shops. However the outfit does not seem to be in any hurry.

Last fall, industry analysts predicted there would be an oversupply of manufacturing capacity due to a market correction following the strong revenue posted in 2010, but following the earthquake, tsunami, and now nuclear crisis in Japan, the landscape looks different.

Renesas is in talks to outsource production of auto microcontrollers to Globalfoundries Singapore, and some mobile phone semiconductor production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Shino Inokuma, a spokesman for Renesas, said by telephone.

Globalfoundries expects revenues to rise at least 14% to more than US$4 billion in 2011, and aims to overtake United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) of Taiwan to be the world's second-largest contract chipmaker by revenues, CEO Douglas Grose said in an interview.

"Leading-edge capacity excess, driven by Globalfoundries' expansion primarily, means pricing is going to come down," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. "As leading-edge pricing comes down, so does the trailing-edge [pricing], hollowing out the business. That means real trouble for Globalfoundries and TSMC over the next few years." He conceded that Samsung was a different case with its memory and logic operations.

Toshiba is hammering out a deal to outsource fabrication of advanced system chips to Globalfoundries, the Nikkei business daily reported, citing company sources.

The fab tool industry has undergone a sea of change...

Globalfoundries plans to double its capital spending to US$5.4 billion in 2011, said CFO Robert Krakauer. The money will go toward upgrading a plant in Dresden, Germany, building another in upstate New York and planning a factory in Abu Dhabi.

She was previously the chief operating officer of Osram Opto Semiconductor. She joined them in 2008. She also had executive positions at Altis, AMD, among others.

Globalfoundries and the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, are joining hands to develop MEMS capacitive sensor platform technology for power-efficient and highly sensitive motion sensing applications that are relevant to consumer electronics, automotive and aerospace industries.

IBM seems to be shifting away from semiconductor manufacturing, and planning to rely on Samsung and GlobalFoundries as foundry suppliers. Both foundries are set to have wafer fabs for foundry operations in the US, which could help cement relations.

The semiconductor sector of Abu Dhabi's economy is set to pump US$4 billion into the capital, creating up to 6,000 new employment positions in Abu Dhabi over the next decade, according to industry insiders.

The Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC) has announced it is extending its university research partnership to serve the needs of technology ecosystem in Abu Dhabi. Under the agreement SRC member companies will conduct research sponsored by the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), the parent of Globalfoundries.

Infotech Enterprises, Verisilicon and Wipro have joined Globalsolutions, the sum of Globalfoundries' internal resources and ecosystem partners.

The executive also said the outlook for chip demand remains solid for the remainder of this year, but cautioned another cyclical downturn could be in store next year as industry capacity continues to increase.

"We believe Globalfoundries will continue to ramp capacity over the next few quarters despite a weakening macro environment," said an analyst with Needham & Co. LLC, in a report. "We estimate Globalfoundries' capex will grow from about US$2.6 billion in 2010 to US$3.0-4.0 billion in 2011..."

Globalfoundries and Freescale Semiconductor have jointly announced plans to bring a new class of thin film storage (TFS) flash memory products to market on 90nm technology.

Robert Krakauer succeeds Bruce McDougall, CFO of Globalfoundries since the company's launch in March 2009. McDougall will assume a new role as CFO of ATIC, the majority shareholder of Globalfoundries.

The most important announcement from SEMICON West was a subtle statement from Globalfoundries about tools. Putting some bits together, it is pretty clear that the company is going to use EUV lithography at the 15nm node.

IBM, Samsung and Globalfoundries are working with STMicroelectronics to develop and standardize advanced, 28nm process technology to ensure consistent production worldwide for electronics and device manufacturers.

STMicroelectronics will be ready to tape out designs using a 20nm CMOS low power process technology in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to company CTO Jean-Marc Chery.

"ATIC is not in a position to do this in this stage of our capital deployment," said Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of Advanced Technology.

"Advanced technology is not only about cost. At 45nm we have showed that we can go to high volume production very quickly at high yield..."

GlobalFoundries, Samsung and TSMC appear to be engaged in a new capital spending race in an effort to gain share in current and future cycles. They will survive, observers said, adding that UMC and SMIC could hit the wall and/or may get acquired.

Globalfoundries Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany is undergoing several major changes, including integration of separate modules into an integrated facility. With a steep 32nm MPU ramp underway that includes high-k/metal gate technology, the fab is also now running foundry wafers for non-AMD customers.

Representatives from GlobalFoundries and TSMC said their companies are focused on tighter cooperation with EDA and IP vendors. The comments were part of a panel discussion at the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) conference, held last week in Dresden, Germany.

Abu Dhabi-backed foundry Globalfoundries is planning to spend US$2.5 billion to increase its 300mm wafer manufacturing capacity by 50% in 2010, according to Udo Nothelfer, company VP and general manager of Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

Technology managers have strong opinions on the merits of the gate-first and gate-last methods of depositing high-k dielectrics and metal gate electrodes. Controlling the PMOS V appears challenging with the gate-first method, while the gate-last approach requires layout engineers to adhere to new restrictive design rules to accommodate planarization requirements.

Abu Dhabi government-owned Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) plans to spend US$2-3 billion this year in capacity expansion as it eyes a larger share of the global contract chip industry.

Their system-on-a-chip (SoC) platform is based on ARM's Cortex-A9 processor and Globalfoundries' 28nm manufacturing process, and will be used in smartphones, tablets and smartbooks.