AMD spin-off and supplier GlobalFoundries is cutting 5% of its 18,000-strong workforce. The Santa Clara based company is currently on a mission to improve its financial performance a spokesperson told EETimes. This Monday, GlobalFoundries notified its employees across a ‘variety of functional areas and all geographies’, that the company will offer a voluntary separation program.
Mergers and acquisitions
Management put forward that ‘redundancies that have accrued from previous mergers’ are to be reduced. The now privately held company has spun of of AMD in 2009 and in the next year it acquired Chartered Semiconductor’s manufacturing facilities. In 2015, IBM’s American fabs were purchased.
GlobalFoundries competition
GlobalFoundries is currently the number two manufacturer of semiconductor products based on 2017 revenue (see table). However, a some strategic partnerships are formed to reach the current 14 and 12 nm process-node size and the 7 nm process which is expected in 2019.
| rank | company | 2017 revenue (in US$) | change (vs 2016) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TSMC | 32.16 billion | +9% |
| 2 | GlobalFoundries | 6.06 billion | +10 |
| 3 | UMC | 4.89 billion | +7% |
| 4 | Samsung | 4.60 billion | +4% |
| 5 | SMIC | 3.10 billion | +6% |
No impact on AMD roadmaps
The semiconductor firm manufactures integrated circuits mostly for companies such as AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and STMicroelectronics. But according to the press release, no fabs, products or roadmaps are affected. As a result, this means that AMD’s Zen 2 based products like Epyc v2 and Ryzen v3 will probably not be delayed.