India has seen how the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi has, with a budget of US$10 billion, set about manouvering its way into a key place in the semiconductor industry with the creation of Globalfoundries.

"Am I setting very aggressive targets? Yes," said Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of Advanced Technology Investment Co., Globalfoundries' controlling shareholder. "We need to be a US$5 billion company in the next two to three years."

Abu Dhabi's ATIC, which helped create Globalfoundries when AMD spun off its manufacturing business, is looking to assume full control of the company.

The recruiting of what will be hundreds of new workers over the next few years marks a striking turnaround from last January, when Chartered announced that it would cut 500 jobs.

The combined company employs approximately 10,000 people around the world, anchored by headquarters in Silicon Valley and manufacturing operations in Singapore and Germany, and a new fab under construction in New York.

Having recently completed the acquisition of Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Globalfoundries is expected to launch the new, combined entity this week.

Globalfoundries will initially provide Qualcomm with access to 45nm LP and 28nm LP technologies with an intended collaboration on future advanced process nodes.

Singapore regulators have approved a takeover offer by Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), which made a bid for Chartered in September.

Besides adding manufacturing capacity through ATIC's acquisition of Chartered and the construction of a new plant in New York, Globalfoundries is counting on advanced process technologies to help it win customers and compete with rivals like TSMC.

"Chartered shareholders have spoken overwhelmingly in favor of the acquisition...as we believe this offer enables Chartered to accelerate its goal of becoming a leading player in the semiconductor industry," said Jim Norling, chairman of the board of directors at Chartered.

Chartered Semiconductor has reported a net loss of US$4.7 million in the third quarter, compared to losses of US$39.4 million in the prior quarter and US$24.4 million in third-quarter 2008. In light of the proposed acquisition by ATIC, Chartered said it will not be providing guidance for its fourth quarter ending December 31, 2009.

EDA company Mentor Graphics has entered into a multi-year software and services agreement with Globalfoundries which includes the provision of Calibre software for the design of 32nm and 28nm chips.

The R&D costs for process technology are expected to climb from US$310-to-US$400 million for the 90nm to 65nm nodes, to US$600-to-US$900 million for 45nm to 32nm, to US$1.3 billion for 22nm to 12nm. A fab would run from US$2.5-to-US$3.5 billion for the 90nm to 65nm nodes, to US$3.5-to-US$4 billion for 45nm to 32nm, to US$4.5-to-US$6 billion for 22nm to 12nm.

Samsung, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments already use ARM designed chip cores. Intel used to have an ARM license too, but flogged it to Marvell.

"Our roadmap for 32nm SOI has not slipped," according to a spokesman for the company. "Yes, the timeframe for introduction has been altered slightly compared to the roadmap we showed you in July, but that is not because of any issues with the technology."

Last October, Doug Grose was given a daunting task–turning the semiconductor manufacturing operations of AMD into a service that would also serve other chip designers. Now it looks like his job may effectively double.

Toshiba is in talks with Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor and Globalfoundries about outsourcing production of some of its next-generation system chips to help cut costs, two company sources said.

Cadence Design Systems and Globalfoundries have jointly announced a multi-year software and services agreement for advanced semiconductor design.

When we asked Jensen about Globalfoundries, the big man from Nvidia said that Nvidia likes to work with companies that are customer centric. Since TSMC has 200 customers its kind of hard to be in center of attention, while such a thing might be possible with some alternative fab companies, such as Globalfoundies.

GlobalFoundries spokesperson Jon Carvill responded to Chang's questionable analogy by reiterating GF's "total" commitment to fair competition.

Even if the STMicroelectronics assignment would be large enough to keep the utilization up far enough, it would not suffice to guarantee the company's competitiveness. But, as Buddha said: Every journey begins with the first step.

Globalfoundries has announced a strategic customer relationship with STMicroelectronics.

Globalfoundries plans to introduce embedded silicon carbon (eSiC) to strain the nFET transistors at the 22 nm node, said John Pellerin, director of technology development.

The foundry's goal is to have the first tool move in by October 2011, with qualification coming in early 2012 and commercial production by the second half of 2012.

Robert Rivet, AMD's CFO said in a conference call that capex for subsidiary Globalfoundries would be trimmed to US$690 million.

GlobalFoundries will hold its official groundbreaking for Fab 2 at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta on July 24.

Globalfoundries has announced the appointment of Norm Armour as vice president and general manager and Eric Choh as vice president of operations to lead an expanding team dedicated to developing Fab 2 in New York.

At the 2009 Symposium on VLSI Technology in Kyoto, Japan, Globalfoundries reported the first demonstration of a technique that allows the equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) in a high-k metal gate (HKMG) transistor to scale down to well beyond the level required for the 22nm node, while maintaining a combination of low leakage, low threshold voltages, and superior carrier mobility.

The construction project is expected to take approximately two years to complete and an additional 12 to 18 months to ramp to full operating mode, with volume production anticipated in roughly 2012.

Once completed, Globalfoundries' Fab 2 project is expected to create more than 6,400 direct and indirect jobs in the region.

Globalfoundries has announced a joint development agreement with T-RAM, as part of which the two firms will bring T-RAM's Thyristor-RAM embedded memory technology to "advanced technology nodes."

AMD's spun-off manufacturing arm, Globalfoundries, reportedly has convinced Subramani Kengeri to join its team. Kengeri comes from manufacturing giant TSMC and was one of the key people behind the recently announced TSMC/Intel deal.

The group also has developed a 32nm process and says customers will be able to move to the more power-efficient 28nm technology without a major redesign. Among the members of the joint development alliance is GlobalFoundries, a manufacturing company formed by AMD and Advanced Technology Investment.