AMD Spin-Off GlobalFoundries Plans Major Expansion

GlobalFoundries, the newly named spin-off of Advanced Micro Devices' chip manufacturing operations, will begin construction on a $4.2 billion semiconductor fabrication plant in Saratoga County, N.Y., this year, the company said Wednesday.

The state-of-the-art facility, capable of manufacturing 32nm microprocessors, will create approximately 1,400 direct jobs and more than 5,000 indirect jobs, the company said. The new plant will be designated Fab 2, joining the company's Fab 1 facility in Dresden, Germany.

GlobalFoundries was formally launched this week, jointly owned by AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), an Abu Dhabi venture capital firm. But until today the company has been known only as The Foundry Company before being christened GlobalFoundries.

GobalFoundries, which will manufacture AMD chips as well as microprocessors for other semiconductor companies, said it expects to invest up to $6 billion to expand its manufacturing capabilities worldwide. That includes the new plant on the Luther Forest Campus in Saratoga County, for which no completion date was given, and expansion of the Dresden plant.

In Dresden GlobalFoundries will build a second 300mm manufacturing facility, slated for completion by the end of this year. The current manufacturing line will produce high-performance 45nm silicon-on-insulator chips while the new line will make 32nm "bulk silicon" products.

GlobalFoundries also moved quickly to fill out its executive ranks. The company said it named Bruce McDougall, who has held executive positions with companies in the mining and power generation industries, as its CFO.

Jim Doran, previously COO of flash memory chip maker Spansion, was appointed senior vice president and general manager in charge of the Dresden facility. Before joining Spansion Doran held a number of technical and management posts at AMD.

And Alexie Lee, most recently vice president, general counsel and secretary at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, was named vice president and general counsel for GlobalFoundries.

The new execs join CEO Doug Grose and Chairman Hector Ruiz at GlobalFoundries. The company, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., currently has 3,000 employees.