Not if, but when
CEO says funding of federal act would aid Malta expansion odds
Globalfoundries CEO says if the chipmaker can obtain federal funding, building a second factory in Malta will happen.
For Tom Caulfield, it’s only a question of when Globalfoundries will build a second computer chip factory in Malta, home to its Fab 8 complex.
With Congress and former President Donald Trump having approved a potential $25 billion incentive program to expand domestic chip production last year, Caulfield, CEO of Globalfoundries, recently told Reuters that if Globalfoundries can obtain some of that funding through what’s known as the CHIPS Act, then Fab 8.2 is a go.
“It’s not a question of if,” Caulfield told Reuters for a story earlier this month. “It’s just a question of when. And a key element of going forward will be the funding of the CHIPS Act.”
Caulfield and other U.S. industry leaders are now turning to President Joe Biden to actually fund the CHIPS Act, which was included as part of the Defense Department spending plan approved under Trump. Although Congress estimated the program to cost $25 billion, the exact funding amount is not
spelled out in in the CHIPS bill.
Last month, the Semiconductor Industry Association wrote a letter to Biden asking him to fund the CHIPS Act through his infrastructure or pandemic bill.
Biden signed an executive order last month that suggests that he would like to fund CHIPS with as much as $37 billion, much more than even Congress suggested.
“Congress has authorized a bill but they need ... $37 billion to make sure that we have this capacity,” Reuters quoted Biden saying last month in a separate story. “I’ll push for that as well.”
A new chip factory costs between $10 billion and $15 billion to build.
Globalfoundries is in a unique position because it is the only chip company that makes the U.S. military’s most sensitive chips.
Caulfield also had more good news for Fab 8, which employs roughly 3,000 people. Globalfoundries is pouring $1.4 billion into its fabs in Dresden, Germany, Singapore and Malta.
That’s about $466 million for each complex, a substantial sum, although Caulfield also said Globalfoundries, which is backed by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, has pushed up its planned initial public offering to this year or early 2022 as demand for chips, especially from the automotive industry, is surging.
“The adoption of technology that would normally have taken a decade happened in one year in 2020 because of COVID -19,” Caulfield said in his interview with Reuters.