14 DAY TRIAL // Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices and newly founded GLOBALFOUNDRIES have just announced that the new foundry company has officially broken ground on the construction of Fab 2, its new semiconductor manufacturing facility scheduled to become operational in 2012. Located at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga Country, New York, the new Fab 2 is meant to become the most technologically advanced manufacturing facility in the world, with a reported investment of US$4.2 billion. The facility is expected to manufacture microprocessors and logic products on 300mm wafers.
“Fab 2 represents the culmination of AMD’s multi-year vision to bring a leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing facility to the United States. This is an important opportunity to create thousands of jobs and strengthen U.S. competitiveness in the high-tech industry,” said Dirk Meyer, president and CEO, AMD. “GLOBALFOUNDRIES is expected to be an ideal technology partner for the entire semiconductor design industry, providing cost-effective access to manufacturing capacity on an unprecedented scale. The multi-billion dollar investments in research and development and capacity expansion that GLOBALFOUNDRIES is planning, strengthen its position as a premier leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing foundry and make it the ideal AMD technology partner to help in bringing our innovative products to market.”
Fab 2 will join GLOBALFOUNDRIES' Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany and will enable the company to become the provider of a global network of manufacturing capabilities, rivaling with other manufacturing companies in Asia. The new facility is also expected to create about 1,400 jobs, directly related to the semiconductor manufacturing process, while an additional 5000 new jobs will be created in the region as an indirect consequence.
The new facility is expected to ramp at the 28nm technology node, moving to volume manufacturing on the 22nm manufacturing node. The foundry is expected to announce some of its major clients in the upcoming future.