Semiconductor packaging vendor Amkor Technology and pure-play foundry GlobalFoundries (GF) are collaborating to bring what they claim is the first at-scale back-end facility in Europe.
Under the partnership, GF will transfer its 300 mm bump and sort lines from its Dresden site to Amkor’s Porto, Portugal, operations. GF will maintain ownership of the transferred tools, processes and IP at the Porto factory. The partnership will also include future collaboration for upcoming efforts in Portugal.
Amkor is the only high-volume, Tier 1 outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) vendor in Europe and GF’s Dresden fab is Europe’s largest semiconductor manufacturing services company, the companies claim. Additionally, the partnership will enable the first chip foundry through advanced packaging semiconductor supply chain outside of Asia.
“GF remains committed to growing our European manufacturing ecosystem to support local and global customers, especially in the automotive markets, said Mike Hogan, chief business officer at GF. “This partnership with Amkor in Portugal will provide much needed services within the EU and expand the US-European semiconductor supply chain.”
France fab
As part of its European expansion, GF signed an agreement with ST Microelectronics last year to build a jointly operated 300 mm semiconductor fab in France.
The fab will be built adjacent to ST’s existing 300 mm facility in Crolles, France, with a ramp to full capacity expected by 2026, generating 620,000 300 mm wafers per year. Of this, about 58% of the wafers will be used by GF and about 42% of the wafers will be used by ST.
The fab will support the development of fully depleted silicon on insulator (FD SOI)-based technologies.
Busy year
It has already been a busy year for GF. Earlier this month, it completed the transition of its 300 mm East Fishkill, New York, fab to Onsemi. The facility will be the largest Onsemi manufacturing facility in the U.S. and will feature 40 nm and 65 nm technology nodes specialized in processing capabilities for image sensor production.
Also this month, the company acquired the conductive bridging random access memory (CBRAM) technology from Renesas Electronics to expand its 5G and internet of things (IoT) offerings for its foundry customers.
