News & Analysis
Slideshow: GlobalFoundries expanding in Dresden
Peter Clarke
6/18/2012 12:40 PM EDT
Under a yellow light
It is not often that you get given the opportunity to go inside a functioning wafer fab. Engineering managers are usually very protective of their domain and concerned that defect rates will shoot up after such a visit. But given the chance journalists were prepared to "suit-up," use the special non-shedding, cleanroom paper notebooks and not touch anything. Note the foup-carrying vehicles above that transport boxes of wafers between machines. FOUP was originally an acronym for Front Opening Unified Pod, a box in which the atmosphere is kept ultra clean and which carries up to 25 wafers of 300-mm diameter. However, the acronym has largely entered the vocabulary as foup, a word in its own right now.
Click on image to enlarge.
Germany's press corps. listens and takes notes on just how complicated it is to make integrated circuits
The yellow light is used to minimize energy input into resists and other processes, while wafers are transported between machines. It is also vary rare that a chip maker allows photographs to be taken inside a fab for fear of giving away trade secrets. This and following photographs were taken for GlobalFoundries and scrutinized prior to release.
Click on image to enlarge.
Steel sheeting is in place to spread the load as more equipment is brought in.
The expansion module is still relatively empty but some equipment is already in place and in production while other equipment is being qualified, GlobalFoundries' guides said. Meanwhile more equipment is brought in on roadways made of steel plates to spread the load and prevent damage to the floor.
Next: Take it to the bridge
It is not often that you get given the opportunity to go inside a functioning wafer fab. Engineering managers are usually very protective of their domain and concerned that defect rates will shoot up after such a visit. But given the chance journalists were prepared to "suit-up," use the special non-shedding, cleanroom paper notebooks and not touch anything. Note the foup-carrying vehicles above that transport boxes of wafers between machines. FOUP was originally an acronym for Front Opening Unified Pod, a box in which the atmosphere is kept ultra clean and which carries up to 25 wafers of 300-mm diameter. However, the acronym has largely entered the vocabulary as foup, a word in its own right now.
Click on image to enlarge.
Germany's press corps. listens and takes notes on just how complicated it is to make integrated circuits
The yellow light is used to minimize energy input into resists and other processes, while wafers are transported between machines. It is also vary rare that a chip maker allows photographs to be taken inside a fab for fear of giving away trade secrets. This and following photographs were taken for GlobalFoundries and scrutinized prior to release.
Click on image to enlarge.
Steel sheeting is in place to spread the load as more equipment is brought in.
The expansion module is still relatively empty but some equipment is already in place and in production while other equipment is being qualified, GlobalFoundries' guides said. Meanwhile more equipment is brought in on roadways made of steel plates to spread the load and prevent damage to the floor.
Next: Take it to the bridge
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stippu
6/18/2012 11:14 PM EDT
Great pictures of the inside of a fab, Peter. Looking at this, reminds me back to the plant that Flextronics had set up here ( it was not a fab but am OEM unit and that was one of the firsts we had in the Indian southern city of Chennai. ANd, that took a long time to build too, to the necessary specs. And, when we in India keep talking about setting up a fab, I can just about imagine the time it is going to take and will we ever be able to maintain the quality. Right from clean water to stable electricity, there is a problem in every city ( with 1-2 hr power cuts in every city even today).. and we talk about setting a world class fab. Sure,it is a dream and we like to dream big but... all players, including the government have to really pull it off, in a big way and I mean really big way. Lets wait and see. These pictures set me thinking how we, in India can do it.. and the operative word is when.
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rwik78
6/19/2012 8:26 PM EDT
GF has postponed fab plans in Abu Dhabi, where ATIC (their prime investor and stakeholder) is based. My guess is that would take maybe another 5-8 years depending on GF profits and global semiconductor economy.
Doubt any expansion plans in India makes sense. In India: Design, yes, semi manufacturing? There is no ecosystem, no local technicians, and infra is a disaster. So I dont think that makes any sense whatsoever.
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peter.clarke
6/19/2012 7:22 AM EDT
The bad news Sufia is that when I asked GlobalFoundries people about whether stories that linked the company to the Indian fab plan process they said they have no idea where these stories come from.
As to the power supply issue, I don't think that is a problem. In Dresden GlobalFoundries runs its own power station to run the plant and puts the excess electricity it produces into the German grid.
I can imagine the same set-up could be created in India.
However, access to enormous volumes of water might be an issue.
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iniewski
6/19/2012 9:31 AM EDT
Great pics from inside the fab Rick...pretty rare...although I can't say I learned anything from them ;-)...Kris
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wilber_xbox
6/19/2012 10:45 AM EDT
I had heard that GF has put the expansion in Germany on hold following the bad economic conditions in Europe and GF's own financial problems. So, this visit is just a pre-committed journalist's visit or GF is back on track?
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SiliconAsia
6/19/2012 1:01 PM EDT
GF is losing a lead customer AMD at 28nm to TSMC and we have not heard that anyone iso back-filling the Dresden fab yet! As foundry sales cycle is long and technology bring-ups are tedious, it will be a while when GF can be back on track if they can....
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ZaK325
6/20/2012 7:37 AM EDT
This is completely false. In fact, demand is such that TSMC cannot come close to filling AMDs orders alone (let alone yield well at the node), and they will continue to be a key customer at the GF site. Regardless GF has numerous other extremely promising contracts to fulfill for several years to come, hence the EXPANSION projects in both Germany and New York.
Typical GF slander-trolling post above.
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KB3001
6/20/2012 10:41 AM EDT
Nice report, Peter. rwik78's post above reminded me of GF's plans to build a fab in Abu-Dhabi, any news on this?
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peter.clarke
6/21/2012 7:32 AM EDT
@KB3001
Regarding Abu Dhabi, noithing substantial.
Rutger Wijburg, general manager at Fab 1, told me that the vision to build a wafer fab in Abu Dhabi is still in place but the timetable has been pushed back.
The original timetable called for ground-breaking in 2012 and chips out in 2014.
I suspect groundbreaking time may become more likely when Fab 8 in Malta, Saratoga County, New York is in volume production.
But the ATIC sovereign wealth fund has been burning money at a tremendous rate. DO they have the appetite for another $5 billion to $10 billion commitment in a location where almost all the workforce would have to be parachuted in.
And it would not be great news for Dresden as it would probably reduce the chances of 20-nm upgrades at that fab complex. We will see.
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jeremybirch
6/21/2012 12:41 PM EDT
Apart from loads of oil cash to invest and a liberal supply of sand, not sure why a fab in Abu Dhabi makes any sense at all. There is precious little local skilled labour force, and an awful lot of dust to cope with!
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KB3001
6/22/2012 4:12 AM EDT
The skilled force can come from somewhere else jeremybirch, there are more foreigners living in UAE than locals :-) I agree that setting a fab there does not make much sense on technical grounds but ATIC owns GF, so that's a good enough reason :-) I do not see why would they would otherwise pump billions of dollars into a distant business that is not even breaking even.
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jeremybirch
6/21/2012 12:44 PM EDT
and if the water has to come from desalination it is going to be rather costly
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m00nshine
6/21/2012 11:56 PM EDT
GF is in the position of having to do something extraordinary to avoid becoming a distant 3rd rate player to the likes of TSMC and Samsung in the years to come. Nothing described here fits that bill, whereas TSMC and samsung continue to invest billions every year in new capacity construction and retrofit/upgrade. And they don't seem to take 4 years to get a fab up and running like GF is doing in new york. So how can GF compete and grow their business, and what volume customers (aside from AMD) would want to go to GF with those obvious limitations?
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Richy Reef
6/22/2012 12:10 AM EDT
I 2nd that thought.
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ZaK325
6/24/2012 8:03 AM EDT
I find it somewhat comical how so many assume that GF doesn't already have volume customers contracted and lined-up for years to come... And also that AMD is the only major company-customer simply because they are the only (obvious) one publicly known. Are we to believe that they are that horribly unprepared?
Do folks truly believe that the *producing* fab in New York is simply idle and waiting for volume customers... when AMD doesn't even have a single product project in that fab? Hmm...
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peter.clarke
6/25/2012 12:55 PM EDT
And as Rutger Wijburg said in the second half of 2012 more than 50 percent of the output of Fab 1 in Dresdden, which currently stands at about 50,000 wafer starts per month, will not be for AMD.
So that means more than 25,000 wafers per month heading towards new foundry customers of GlobalFoundries.
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