A robotic arm relocations 300 mm silicon semiconductor wafers inside an arranging device in a cleanroom at a GlobalfoundriesInc semiconductor fabrication plant.
Liesa Johannssen|Bloomberg|Getty Images
U.S.-headquartered InternationalFoundries revealed Tuesday the opening of its $4 billion growth fabrication plant in Singapore as the agreement chipmaker anticipates “growth in demand for essential semiconductor chips.”
“I’m confident that over the next decade, this industry will double again,” Thomas Caulfield, president and CEO of InternationalFoundries, informed CNBC in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s opening.
Some drivers consist of “new and important applications, the whole AI and how that will change society”– which will need chips and develop need, he discussed.
“Automotive seems to be staying strong. Cloud for artificial intelligence seems to be strong. Industrial is holding in there. Anything consumer related is still weak,” Caulfield stated Monday.
Foundries are business that are contracted by semiconductor companies to produce chips. InternationalFoundries makes semiconductors developed by the similarity Qualcomm, MediaTek and NXP Semiconductors, and serves around 200 consumers worldwide.
Its chips are discovered in smart devices, laptop computers, autos, virtual truth systems, computer game consoles, wise speakers, and are likewise utilized in AI and 5G.
Singapore products 11% of the world’s semiconductors, according to the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association.
Partnership with Singapore
InternationalFoundries is the world’s third-largest foundry by earnings behind TSMC and Samsung, according to market intelligence service provider TrendForce.
The 23,000- square meter fab center in Singapore will increase the business’s international production footprint and increase its capability to serve consumers throughout its producing websites in 3 continents, journalism release stated.
“As Singapore’s most advanced semiconductor facility to date, the expansion fab will produce an additional 450,000 wafers (300mm) annually, raising GlobalFoundries Singapore’s overall capacity to approximately 1.5 million wafers (300mm) each year,” it included.
InternationalFoundries obtained Singapore’s Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing and took control of its fabs in2010
The website’s existing production capability is 720,000 (300 mm) wafers and 692,000 (200 mm) wafers a year. Such wafers are the raw material for producing chips.
The brand-new center will develop about 1,000 “high-value” tasks in Singapore, of which 95% will consist of devices professionals, procedure professionals and engineers, the business stated. InternationalFoundries presently employs approximately 4,500 staff members at the Singapore website.
InternationalFoundries revealed in June 2021 the building of a brand-new fab on its existing Singapore school, in collaboration with the city-state’s Economic Development Board, in order to fulfill international need for semiconductor chips at that time.
The following June, the Nasdaq- noted semiconductor producer stated its very first tool had actually been moved into the Singapore center. It likewise has production centers in the U.S. and Germany.
“GlobalFoundries had a long partnership with the Singapore government. The Singapore government has industrial policies about bringing high tech manufacturing, high tech innovation to the region. And it’s why you see so many great companies having manufacturing here,” Caulfield informed CNBC’s Sri Jegarajah.
“What occurs now is when other countries recognize how crucial semiconductor production is to their area, for sovereign security, for supply chain, for financial security, they too [will] wish to have semiconductor production, which they require to change their commercial policies to assist develop that competitive landscape where production and those areas are financially competitive,” he included.
The growth will likewise execute AI tools to enhance performance such as wafer pattern acknowledgment to auto-classify and area flaws in wafers, stated GlobalFoundries
Correction quickly?
Smartphone and PC makers are presently facing excess stocks of memory chips after stockpiling them throughout the pandemic-induced boom. As inflation skyrocketed, customers have actually been cutting down on these products and costs for memory chips have actually fallen.
The likes of Taiwanese semiconductor foundry TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung have actually reported decreases in second-quarter earnings as weak need for memory chips continued.
“We’ve seen in the second quarter of this year, inventories at semiconductor companies still climb but at a much muted rate,” statedCaulfield “The good news is we’ve also seen the inventory further down the supply chain, such as system companies, start to go down. And so maybe there is a little bit of a glimmer here that inventory is starting to correct.”
However, international inflation needs to be under control initially prior to rates of interest can boil down and customer costs can be healthy once again, especially in China, he stated.
