GlobalFoundries relishes bad economy
THE CRUDDY STATE OF the economy is helping rather than hurting GlobalFoundries according to Jon Carvill, head of communications at the AMD manufacturing spinoff.
"In many ways, it's a buyer's market" Carvill told the INQ, adding that the firm was having a much easier time negotiating good prices on tools, infrastructure and even "talent" (see: unemployment queues in Silicon Valley).
"We're building a pretty robust management team" said Carvill, adding that Lost and Foundries was currently growing its business for 2009 and transitioning from having just one customer - AMD - to serving the needs of multiple customers.
But, with the exception of Taiwanese giant TSMC, foundries don't exactly seem to be raking in the chips at the moment, hindered by the kind of capital intensity required to make it in manufacturing. New fabs cost in the neighbourhood of four to four and a half billion dollars and new process nodes are at least another billion dollars in R&D.
"Even our friends at Intel have had to re-assess their manufacturing needs based on the costs to put those fabs up," said Carvill, referring to Chipzilla's recent announcement it would channel some seven billion into moving towards 32nm manufacturing processes.
So what makes Global Foundries so special then? We asked Carvill, puzzled at his confidence despite the shrivelling foundry market.
Well, apparently when the chips are down and the economic environment is as arid as a desert, there's no need to get the hump, just look to oil money.
Carvill told the INQUIRER the sheikhs from ATIC (the Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi, which owns 65.8 per cent of GF) were "some of the most savvy investors" he'd ever had the opportunity to sit down with.
"They take a seven-to-ten year view of the market, not a three-to-five year, not a two-to-four year, not a venture capitalist type view," said Carvill, "That's a pretty unique capability that not many investors would give us."
He added: "Thus far, it's really been a match made in heaven."
Carvill claims GlobalFlounder's ‘global-ness' makes it attractive in itself, and reckons thi is a huge bonus when compared to the likes of TSMC and UMC which have everything concentrated just in Taiwan.
GF's research and development is spread throughout North America "where, arguably, the best people in the semiconductor industry get trained, whether they work in Taiwan or otherwise," gushed Carvill.
To illustrate his point, Carvill spoke at length about how his firm is currently shoring up its Dresden fab and working quickly to get New York chipping in by 2012.
Referring to the facility in upstate New York, which will start out at 32nm with the ability to make a fast turn to 22nm tech, Carvill modestly declared "it's going to be the most advanced fab in the world".
The INQ was also told New York's first Global Foundries employee started work a couple of weeks ago, and currently has all the cubes in the building to himself. µ
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Recession Took STeWie by storm, yet if you bought AMD at $1.63 earlier this year in just few months you could have doubled your money, already. perhaps AMD Already did. Isn't "trouble" thing bit of self beggery? AMD did this to itself by ploping Barcelona on Public & is now two generations of cpu behind, i7 & Nehalem. don't expect anycrushing upward spiral, yet another doubling as AMD crawls out of barcelona fiasco is inevitable or, slow sinking into western sun, if more failures of projects occur. gone are power days of X2, Intel has Reins & going to trott out dunington within year, could be axe that cut head off of AMD or might find huge niche market, as such powerful processing isn't often needed by public. Money Has Multiplier that is Unlocked, too. yet will intel drown AMD or AMD recover or at least stay in place for quite long time? drashek
Right now, there is nothing in Luther Forest but trees, dirt, and some black bears and deer. No cubes to speak of.
But soon, I've been told, soon. Construction contracts are being let.
Perssonaly I think its great that AMD and Global Foundries are investing in US jobs.
I hope they suceed and perform well.
To the prior poster that says AMD is two generations behind in CPU tech to Intel, I ask this, does it realy matter to the average consumer? Most folks are getting plenty of performance out of thier dual core machines, who is the i7 realy for? Its for an enthusiast that does alot of encoding, and even then, is that CPU the real ceneterpiece of a high end computer system today? What about the graphics solution, AMD offers full platform computing with matching chipset, CPU and graphics, I don't think they are necessarily behind Intel, I think they have a more balanced approach that the market is slowly learning to appreaciate.
Cliff, while you are 'commending' AMD for building in the US - realize that AMD is not building a fab (GF is), and GF (or AMD if you prefer even though they are a minority owner) is bilking the NY taxpayer out of ~1.4+Bil dollars, which amounts to over~$1Mil per job created and NY paying for more than 33% of the fab (maybe they should get an ownership stake?). This also assumes of course all of these are NEW jobs, and some are not transfers from say Dresden or some existing folks at the IBM facility?
This is the same company that moved their Austin facilities to Germany for subsidies, and only moved back to the US when they got a HUGE payment from US taxpayers and couldn't get a similar amount from Germany a 2nd time.
It is clear Cliff is just an AMD spinster - look at his comment about dual cores being good enough; yet who was the one trying to make low speed quads mainstream (AMD), because they couldn't get clocks up on the dual cores. Who is the one arguing that netbooks need 1080p graphics capabilities on screens that don't even have 1080 lines?
I so much love having more arabs in our land
OMGOSH MORE ARABS I LOVE EM GIMME MORE GIMME MORE !!
not.
Be nice if they could give us two towers back instead.