Good result
From its inception GlobalFoundries - the semiconductor foundry formed from the spin-off of AMD's manufacturing operations - has openly stated that it views the SoC (system on chip) market as the key to its future success.
Today GlobalFoundries announced that it has entered into a "non-binding memorandum of understanding" with the world's biggest fables semiconductor company and major SoC player Qualcomm, to collaborate on 45nm and 28 nm low power technologies, with the further intention of collaborating on future advanced process nodes.
This doesn't yet seem to be the announcement that Qualcomm is a GlobalFoundries customer, rather a precursor to a future deal. However, in common with the rest of the ARM ecosystem, Qualcomm has clearly wants to make sure it has multiple foundry options. The announcement predicts that GlobalFoundries will begin accepting Qualcomm designs at Fab 1 in Dresden in 2010.
"As our customers increasingly demand more performance, lower power, functionality and portability in their mobile experiences, the need for a strong manufacturing and technology foundation is more important than ever before," said Jim Clifford, SVP and GM of operations at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. "With its manufacturing capacity and technology roadmap, GlobalFoundries is well positioned to help us enable the next generation of wireless innovation."
Assuming this does develop into an enduring commercial relationship between the two companies, it will represent a major coup for GlobalFoundries. Already the owner of many of the patents inside 3G mobile phone technology, Qualcomm is aggressively targeting the low-power SoC market with its Snapdragon product, which is appearing in many of the new products announced at CES.
"As one of the largest and most successful semiconductor design companies in the world, Qualcomm needs access to the industry's most advanced technologies along with the ability to rapidly bring them to market," said Douglas Grose, CEO of GlobalFoundries.
"By bringing the benefits of a leading-edge IDM model to the foundry world, we provide customers with the fastest option to get advanced products to market in volume and at mature yield. We're pleased to have an opportunity to collaborate with a market leader like Qualcomm as they enable new classes of wireless products and technologies for the future."
