To: Gottfried who wrote (2458 ) 12/18/2014 9:08:59 AM From: Kirk © Respond to I wonder if our military requirement for chips made on US soil still applies? It might explain why they bought the IBM foundry business... worth more than just the IP.14nm process to bring healthy competition among foundries: Q&A with Globalfoundries senior VP Chuck Fox Q: Can you tell us when the 14nm process at your company will begin volume production? And why did your company choose to cooperate with Samsung Electronics?A: We plan to begin volume production with a 14nm LPE (low power early) process in the first half of 2015 and then push ahead with a 14nm LPP (low power plus) process in the second half of the year. Based on chip design projects commissioned by our clients, we believe a number of clients will produce wafer starts using 14nm LPE process initially. However, we expect the number of clients as well as wafer orders to grow robustly when we enter the 14nm LPP process, which will help ramp up our market share and sales significantly.With regard to the tie-up with Samsung, I think the cooperation is being pushed by demand from our clients. Besides, both of our technologies are from IBM, which has enabled us to reach consensus in terms of innovation of new manufacturing processes and that is why we can develop the 14nm process rapidly and take the lead in volume production.Q: Your lead in the 14nm process seems to have broken up the market dominance being held by TSMC. How do you assess possible changes of market share?A: Our lead in the 14nm wafer foundry services represents a new choice for global fabless IC design houses in terms of capacity and technology, enabling them to avoid the risk of over concentration on material suppliers. That definitely is a great thing for chip vendors.Q: Chips for the emerging applications, including those for IoT (Internet of Things), wearable devices, telematics and automation, appear to be not looking for advanced processes. Would that affect your capital spending?A: Along with the rise of a number of emerging markets, we have noticed increasing demand for some niche technologies, customized processes and design services with regard to the development of new chips by clients. For example, the low power and low cost SOI (silicon on insulator) process which we have developed in 2014 has now been widely adopted by RF chip suppliers. we have been operating at full capacity persistently, we have decided to ramp up our capacity for SOI process to meet increasing demand. And for new business opportunities that will increase demand for chips for IoT, wearable device, telematics applications, we also plan to step up our services by providing niche manufacturing processes and technology support.Q: Since the China government is promoting the establishment of its own semiconductor industry, what kind of role will Globalfoundreis play in this process?A: The chipset market in China has been growing rapidly, not only for domestic consumption but also for export products, and therefore we have seen increasing influence of the supply chain in China. For this, we have mapped out related strategies for emerging markets and for the establishment of cooperation and development projects.Additionally, in our process to acquire IBM's semiconductor business unit, we may also take over IBM's design service centers in Shanghai and Beijing as well as the resource of over 100 R&D engineers available there. This will also support China-based IC design houses adopting advanced processes to develop mainstream chips for the future. While we have established foundry plants in North America, Singapore and Europe , we will also take into account of medium- to long-term benefits for setting up fabs in China and Taiwan .(This interview was translated from Chinese.) Globalfoundries senior vice president Chuck Fox Photo: Company digitimes.com
