GlobalFoundries moves forward with new chip fab - in Singapore

MALTA — GlobalFoundries is moving forward with a new computer chip factory — only it's not being built in Saratoga County as some might expect.

Instead, the company said they would spend $4 billion on a new factory, or "fab" in Singapore, where they have a large manufacturing campus.

But that doesn't mean the Malta location won't someday house a second facility.

That's because the U.S. House of Representatives is poised to debate the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, a bill that if passed would provide the U.S. computer chip industry $52 billion to counter China's rising semiconductor industry — including money to induce GlobalFoundries to build a second chip factory in Malta.

GlobalFoundries CEO Tom Caulfield, who recently moved the company's headquarters from Silicon Valley to Malta, said the Singapore expansion is part of a companywide initiative that will include expansions in New York and Germany where the company also has chip factories  known as "fabs." The addition of new factories comes on the heels of a global shortage of chips used in everyday electronics caused by the pandemic and the impact it has had on the way people work, live and interact.

“GlobalFoundries is meeting the challenge of the global semiconductor shortage by accelerating our investments around the world," Caulfield said Tuesday. "Working in close collaboration with our customers and the government of Singapore is a recipe for success that we are pioneering here and looking forward to replicating in the U.S and Europe."

The expansion — of GlobalFoundries most sophisticated fab in Singapore — will significantly increase the company's capacity on the island nation by more than 50 percent.

Meanwhile, the Capital Region's business community is waiting with excitement for the House to take up passage of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which was introduced in the Senate by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and passed by the Senate earlier this month. The bill has the support of President Joe Biden, who originally proposed the funding as part of his $2 billion infrastructure bill. 

"By strengthening our innovation infrastructure, we can lay the foundation for the next generation of American jobs and American leadership in manufacturing and technology," Biden said on June 8.

GlobalFoundries said the Singapore expansion would be supported financially in part by the government of Singapore and some customers. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act would likely provide companies that build new chip factories in the U.S. about $2 billion per fab. Because of that, GlobalFoundries, as well as Intel and Samsung, have said they are looking at upstate New York to build new chip fabs, which cost about $10 billion to build in the U.S.

The chip manufacturing bill would not only counter mainland China's rising power in chip manufacturing but also its military aggression toward Taiwan, the island nation that China claims as its own. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, makes many of the chips used in U.S. electronics, including the most advanced iPhones, and an invasion by China would essentially choke the global chip supply and cause havoc in the U.S. China has also denounced Schumer's U.S. Innovation and Competition Act as well.