For GlobalFoundries, the third largest wafer foundry in the world, it has been a rough few years. Due to too much investment in advanced processes, GF abandoned the investment and research and development of the 7nm process, and the major customer AMD also invested in the embrace of TSMC. At the same time, due to performance losses, GF also sold its two fabs. Who would have thought that the two fabs that were originally sold as a burden would become a tool for others to make money after being sold for less than a year.
Due to the impact of factors such as the new crown epidemic, since the second half of last year, the global foundry capacity has continued to be in short supply, and foundry prices have continued to rise. Now the global foundries are almost fully loaded, and many foundries Manufacturers have begun to actively expand production to meet the strong market demand, and GF is no exception.
According to foreign media reports, GF plans to invest $1.4 billion this year, mainly allocated to three factories in the United States, Singapore and Germany to further increase production capacity. It is worth mentioning that 1/3 of the $1.4 billion investment came from customers. Due to the tight production capacity, downstream customers also have to increase their money to invest in GF so that they can increase production capacity.
GF said that starting next year, the factories will ramp up production to produce chips from 12nm to 90nm. The company’s CEO, Kefid, expects the company’s production to increase by 13% next year and 20% in 2022.
If we had known that starting in the second half of 2020, the global foundry capacity would continue to be in short supply, and GF would probably not have sold the two fabs, Fab 3E and Fab 10.
In early February 2019, GF sold the Fab 3E 200mm wafer fab in Singapore to Vanguard International semiconductor/VIS for $236 million (approximately RMB 1.59 billion), which is affiliated with Vanguard International semiconductor/VIS. TSMC Group, specializing in 200mm wafer fab business.
On April 22, 2019, GF announced that it had reached a definitive agreement with ON Semiconductor to sell its Fab 10 300mm fab in East Fishkill, New York, USA to the latter for $430 million (approximately RMB). 2.89 billion yuan).
It can be seen that at that time, GF sold its two fabs for a total of US$666 million. Looking at this price now, the manufacturers who took over have made a lot of money. Now that there is production capacity, it is the master, and the fab is the “mint”. You must know that for a fab, even if you want to expand production on the basis of existing production capacity, it will not be able to increase the production capacity in a short time. If you want to build a new fab to increase production capacity, the cycle can be longer.
I don’t know if GF, which is now planning to expand production, regrets its decision to sell two fabs before?
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