GlobalFoundries Fab Expansion: Doing A Little Math

GlobalFoundries Fab Expansion: Doing A Little Math

Inside the cleanroom at GlobalFoundries Fab 8, Malta, NY

GlobalFoundries (GF) hosted U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in Malta, NY for a major capacity expansion announcement yesterday. The company’s Fab 8 in Malta currently is the lead factory for producing its most advanced CMOS logic chips. CEO Tom Caulfield announced a $1 billion plan to increase capacity 43% within the current footprint, as well as build a second fab on adjacent land that would double their available cleanroom space, or “maybe a little bigger … roughly the space of a megafab,” in his words. Let’s do a little math and see what that tells us about semiconductor chip manufacturing.