An Introduction To AMD Spin-Off Global Foundries

Early last week, we spent a day or so with a number of representatives from Global Foundries, learning about the company's plans for a new fab that will be built in upstate New York. The name Global Foundries may be unfamiliar to many of you, but the company's origins may not. If you remember back to October 2008, AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi announced the creation of a leading-edge global semiconductor manufacturing company, born from AMD's existing fabrication infrastructure. That company officially became Global Foundries on March 2 of this year.

While touring the area in Upstate New York where Global Foundries plans to build its cutting edge fab, we heard from Jon Carvill, Director of Corporate Communications, Doug Grose, CEO, Jim Doran, SVP and GM of the existing Dresden facility, Terry Caudell, Director Wafer Manufacturing, John Pellerin, Director of Research & Development, Tom Sonderman, Vice President, Manufacturing Systems, and a number of representatives from the College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering at the University of Albany. Some of those names may ring a bell to those of you entrenched in technology, as the entire crew is made of former AMD, ATI, and IBM employees.

   

   
Fab 2 Project High Level Overview

The facility in Dresden, Germany formerly known as AMD's Fab 36, is now Global Foundries' Fab 1. For the time being not much is changing there for now. Module 1 of the Dresden facility will remain a high-performance SOI 45nm fab for the time being, but Global Foundries will also be offering bulk fabrication to customers soon through a second module scheduled to ramp production late this year.

What we were in NY to hear about, however, were plans for the new Global Foundries cutting edge Fab 2. Fab 2 will reside on the Luther Forest Technology Campus that lies in the towns of Malta and Stillwater--the border actually runs right through the property. Fab 2 will be a 300mm wafer manufacturing facility designed for 32/22nm process technologies. The plant will require an approximate $4.5B initial investment, have a 300,000sq/ft Class 100 Clean Room, and it is expected to come online some time in 2012. If all goes to plan, Fab 2 will be able to handle 35,000 wafer starts per month once fully ramped, and according to Global Foundries, it will employ over 1400 workers with about 5000+ spin-off jobs being created in the surrounding areas. For now, a single module will be built--Module 1--but the property can accomodate more. In fact, the blueprints are already there for an additional two modules, aptly named Module 2 and Module 3. In addition, all of the modules are laid out on the grounds in such a way that they can each be expanded if necessary.

   

   
Fab 2 Timline and Layout

The Luther Forest Technology Campus (LFTC) is comprised of roughly 1350 acres, of which Fab 2 will consume about 223. Global Foundries will be closing on the property literally any day now and the ground breaking that will signal the start of construction is scheduled for July. Many of the plans and milestones are broken down for you on the slides above, but there is more to Fab 2 than just a new facility. The resources in the area, in addition to Global Foundries' existing partnerships, are interesting stories as well.