GlobalFoundries to Sell 200-mm Fab 3E to Vanguard, Exits MEMS Business

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• HStewart - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

  I wonder how much this has to do with stopping it 7nm development. That development may have hurt GlobalFoundries a lot.

• CiccioB - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

  What many do not understood is that 7nm is a very expensive node both for R&D and for production point of view.
  GF simply can't sustain that expenses and for such is now relegated as foundry playing in B league.
  
  For me in 5 years GF will be dead or sold to a bigger foundry that may be interested in their buildings, not their technology or it will play in very niche market (RF, low power cheap IC, anything that is CHEAP) where it won't be able to come out anymore to fab for high performance industry unless a complete change in materials and cheaper machinery will come.
  
  In few years will be left with only 3 fabs capable of using latest PPs: TSMC, Intel and Samsung, and I'm not sure there will be a place in the market for all three of them.

• FreckledTrout - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

  Agree and I do see a place for all three fabs going forward. I wonder if they will start sharing IP once we see 4-5nm as its going to even more expensive than 7nm.

• sing_electric - Monday, February 4, 2019 - link

  That was my thought, too, that we're likely to see more extensive sharing of IP between companies as we shrink processes further. That's not the worst thing in the world, especially if it helps keep all 3 in the market. Every process shrink from 180nm down to 7nm has resulted in at least one foundry dropping out of the "bleeding edge" market (with the exception of the 22-14nm shrink), and it's bad enough there's only 2 choices for a fabless company (like AMD, Nvidia, etc.) to place orders for the latest process.

• 0ldman79 - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

  You've got to wonder.
  
  I do think that lithography is coming to a point of diminished returns, so 12nm and above might work well for SSD, I/O, wireless, NIC, memory, etc...
  
  Eventually they'll have to go to the next step otherwise they're done for. Everyone will settle in at 7nm, 5nm or 3nm, but we're still at the end of process improvements moving the industry forward.

• flgt - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

  There is a ton of money in RF, ADC/DAC’s,power management. There is probably 10X more revenue in those areas for the products I work on than the processor, so no reason they won’t be around awhile. The key is just to know what you want to be and focus on it. Seems like that’s what they’re doing.

• CiccioB - Monday, February 4, 2019 - link

  10x revenue but 1/10 net profits.
  It is not by chance that TSMC started ramping up their PP investments only after ARM SoC using latest available PP boom happened.
  If you want to make real money you have to produce with the latest PP. Otherwise you are a general foundry like any other (and you may know that all foundris, TSMC, Intel and Samsung operate in the same RF and network, which is another big market, as well).
  
  Declaring their debacle on the new PP, GF simply puts itself in the second lines of foundries on the global market and with diminishing profits (while being a quite large company) it probably will further go behind to 3rd ot 4th line.
  
  In 5 years they be none you will know bout as a consumer and will probably be swallowed (or will merge with) other small foundries to try to create a better marketing scale value, that is essentially what makes foundries make money.

• sing_electric - Monday, February 4, 2019 - link

  The death of companies making latest process silicon really is striking. (Here's a chart going from 130nm to 22nm): http://www.fabtech.org/news/_a/bleading-edge_found...
  
  With the exception of 14nm, EVERY process shrink has kicked at least one competitor out of the game, and this is NOT good for consumers.
  
  We're in a similar situation with say, DRAM production, where 3 suppliers now contorl the market.

• frenchy_2001 - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

  They stopped development of 7nm and beyond because costs are prohibitive and they could not compete.
  Their execution had been lacking for the past few years, especially in process.
  They had to *license* Samsung's 14nm process, instead of using their own, as planned.
  Process is only getting more expensive and competition is moving faster. They retreated on their own, differentiated processes. What nobody else offers.
  This is rather smart. They have a market to serve and the competence to do so, with less competition. Their future, 5~10 years, is assured. Beyond that, they may finally push for smaller sizes at a much lower cost (and similarly add their own twist to it, like on their 12nm processes).
  There is a place for such niche manufacturing, even if it is less glamorous.

• qcmadness - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

  Intel has poured billions into 10nm and what do they get? <10% yield for a dual-core product.