Today, there is a latest press release on the official website of Globalfoundries (GF, Chinese name: GF), announcing that the company will sell its photomask business to Toppan, a subsidiary of Japan's Toppan Company. This is the second time that GF has sold its related business after it has sold several wafer fabs in recent years.
Figure 1: Press release of GF’s photomask factory for sale. (Picture source: GX official website)
On GX official website, we can see the news about its recent sales of its factory. For example, on April 22 this year, the Fab 10 300mm (12-inch) factory in East Fishkill, New York, was sold to ON Semiconductor for a total price of US$430 million.
On January 31, GF sold its Fab 3E 200mm (3-inch) wafer factory building, factory facilities, machinery and equipment, as well as MEMS intellectual property and business at Tampines, Singapore for US$236 million. At that time, Fab 3E's monthly production capacity was about 35,000 8-inch wafers.
GF Corporation was established in 2009 after AMD divested its semiconductor manufacturing business and jointly invested with ATIC, an investment fund of Middle East Petroleum tycoon.
Later, GF acquired the semiconductor business of IBM, and now it has become the world's second largest wafer foundry. The 14/12nm process Ryzen and Polaris GPU chips of AMD were foundryed.
However, even if it is the second place in the world, GSMC's life is not easy. The research and development and production of advanced semiconductor processes is a very expensive industry. TSMC can obtain large orders from Apple, Qualcomm , HiSilicon and other companies by taking the lead in mass production of 10nm and 7nm. It can still hold on with investment of 50 billion US dollars in five years, but other foundries other than TSMC are struggling to survive. Those who can make money are living well.
GF has been losing money for many years, so that its parent company, Mubadala Investment Fund, could not hold on to the reform. It forced GF to embark on the road of streamlining and slimming. First, in August last year, it announced the cessation of the research and development of 7nm and below processes that cost money, and then sold Singapore's Fab3e wafer factory for US$240 million and 12-inch wafer factory in New York State, USA for US$420 million. In addition, the wafer factory that invested nearly US$10 billion in Chengdu, China is also about to be ruined, and the project has stalled.
is now selling mask photomask (also known as photomask ) business, which is their further cost reduction. This part of the business is actually the legacy of the IBM German Dresden wafer fab acquired by GF. Toppan was originally an important partner of their photomask business and one of the main suppliers of GF's 12/14nm process.
Figure 2: Globe certified mask mechanism.
However, GSX did not disclose the specific amount of this transaction this time. After being sold to Toppan, they will continue to cooperate with the latter, and Toppan will supply photomask products and services for American wafer fabs.
As part of the agreement, the Dresden Advanced Photomask Center AMTC, which was previously jointly ventured by the two parties, will accept assets such as photomask manufacturing equipment at GFM factory, and the two parties will cooperate to complete the transfer in the next few months.
