A forgotten chipmaker in US may hold key to end worldwide shortage

GlobalFoundries sits pretty with its everyday products as larger rivals battle it out to make ever-more advanced chips.

Photo: Bloomberg
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GlobalFoundries is betting that as the global chip industry keeps spending money to accelerate toward the leading edge (Photo: Bloomberg)

Tim Culpan | Bloomberg
“Legacy” and “mature” are the words usually thrown at the semiconductors Tom Caulfield produces at factories in Singapore, the U.S. and Germany. He doesn’t like that.

Instead, the chief executive officer of GlobalFoundries wants people to refer to his chips as “feature-rich,” a term he feels better describes their wide array of uses. His point is valid. While larger rivals Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp. battle it out to make ever-more advanced chips, the world is suffering most from a lack of capacity in the very products that GlobalFoundries offers.

“The industry has painted itself into a corner by focusing on single-digit nanometer,” Caulfield said in an online press conference Tuesday, referring to the current

First Published: Jun 23 2021 | 08:28 AM IST

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