GlobalFoundries Inc. and STMicroelectronics have concluded Monday (June 5, 2023) the agreement to create a new, jointly-operated, high-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in Crolles. Particularly, the agreement covered the 300mm semiconductor manufacturing facility in France, which the two companies announced in July 2022.

“I would like to thank Minister Le Maire, the French Minister of the Economy and Finance, and his team for their support and the dedication for the last 12+ months that have made celebrating today’s milestone possible,” said Dr. Thomas Caulfield, President and CEO of GlobalFoundries.

In addition, Caulfield said, “Together, we will deliver GF’s market leading FDX technology and ST’s comprehensive technology roadmap, in alignment with customer demand which is expected to remain high for Automotive, IoT, and Mobile applications over the next decades.”

Meanwhile, Jean-Marc Chery, President and CEO of STMicroelectronics, said, “Today marks an important milestone for ST, for GF as well as for Europe. This could not have been achieved without the support of the French government as well as of the European Commission.”

“We will further reinforce the European and French FD-SOI ecosystem, building more capacity for our European and global customers in complex, advanced technologies for key end-markets including automotive, industrial, IoT and communication infrastructure, as they transition to digitalization and decarbonization. This new manufacturing facility will support our $20 billion+ revenue ambition.”

The program represents an overall projected cost of 7.5 billion euro for CAPEX, maintenance and ancillary costs. The new facility will benefit from significant financial support from the State of France (administered by Bpifrance). The aid measure, in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act and part of the “France 2030” plan, recently received approval from the European Commission.

Expands GF’s Europe Presence

STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries Inc. have agreed to establish and jointly operate a 300mm semiconductor manufacturing facility in France. Particularly, the planned facility will be adjacent to ST’s existing 300mm facility in Crolles.

The new facility will include GF dedicated foundry capacity for customers offering GF’s unique innovation. GF personnel will manage onsite. This jointly operated, new manufacturing capacity expansion leverages ST’s Crolles existing facility infrastructure. Hence, enabling GF to accelerate growth while benefiting from economies of scale to deliver additional capacity in a highly capital efficient manner on our differentiated 22FDX platform.

ST and GF have committed to building capacity for their European and global customer base to support several technologies. Particularly, technologies include FD-SOI-based and will cover multiple variants. This includes GF’s market leading FDX technology and ST’s comprehensive technology roadmap down to 18nm. They expect this to remain in high demand for automotive, IoT, and mobile applications for the next few decades.

FD-SOI technology has origins in the Grenoble (France) area. It has been part of ST technology and product roadmap in its Crolles facility since the early beginnings. Later, it became available commercially for manufacturing at GF’s Dresden facility. FD-SOI offers substantial benefits for designers and customers, including ultra-low power consumption as well as easier integration of additional features such as RF connectivity, mmWave and security.