GlobalFoundries and STMicroelectronics consider building new factories in Europe
At the end of 2020, 17 of the 27 EU countries had jointly issued a European initiative on processors and semiconductor technologies, which aims to encourage EU joint research and investment in advanced processors and semiconductor processes. The European Union has drawn up a plan to increase its global semiconductor market share, hoping to capture 20 percent of global chip production by 2030. Currently, at 10%, it is lower than in East Asia and North America.
“Industrie: Werk GLOBALFOUNDRIES Dresden, Deutschland” by MWM Energy is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
To realize this plan, one of them is to let manufacturers from other regions build new fabs in Europe, such as successfully attracting Intel to build a new fab in Magdeburg, Germany. However, TSMC, the world’s largest wafer foundry, does not seem very interested. Its lack of sufficient European customers and the high cost of building factories in Europe are the main factors hindering it. Of course, other companies that already have fabs in Europe are also ready to make a move, and STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries both want a piece of the pie.
According to Bloomberg reports, STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries hope to get the same factory construction subsidies as Intel to reduce construction costs. STMicroelectronics is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and the new fab is in France. GlobalFoundries is headquartered in New York, USA, and currently has a large fab in Dresden, Germany, and may choose to expand nearby.
Since the main foundry markets of STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries are MCUs, sensors, MEMS and automotive chips, etc., therefore, they will not choose cutting-edge semiconductor processes for production. Earlier this year, STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries announced a partnership. According to industry insiders, the newly built fabs by the two parties are likely to focus on chips required by European-related industries such as automobiles.
