Since the beginning of this year, GlobalFoundries has been actively and certain areas in the business of designing and manufacturing chips. It even gave rise to rumors about preparations for the sale of GlobalFoundries itself. The company traditionally and talk about optimizing activities. Yesterday, this optimization reached an important manufacturer's business, part of which was laid down by AMD, and part went with the acquisition of IBM's semiconductor business.
Как in a press release from GlobalFoundries, the US-based photomask manufacturing facility in Burlington, Vermont, will be sold to Toppan Photomasks, a Japanese company that is a subsidiary of Toppan Printing Corporation. Existing equipment and business will be transferred to Toppan factories around the world, which will strengthen the presence of the Japanese in the regions. The relevant staff of GlobalFoundries is promised to be provided with further work, so no layoffs are planned for the time being.
In exchange for assets and equipment, Toppan Photomasks promises to provide GlobalFoundries semiconductor production with photomasks in the required volume, for which a multi-year supply agreement has been concluded between the companies. In addition, GlobalFoundries plans to expand its photomask production capacity in Europe. Back in 2003, Infineon, AMD and DuPont Photomasks built a joint factory for the production of photomasks in Dresden - Advanced Mask Technology Center GmbH & Co. KG (AMTC). After a series of share sales, AMTC has been a joint venture between GlobalFoundries and Toppan Photomasks since 2009. In the future, the AMTC center will remain partly at the disposal of GlobalFoundries and will strengthen its role in providing the manufacturer with photomasks.
In each case, the money issue was left out of the news. How much GlobalFoundries will gain from the sale of the American production of photomasks, and how much it will cost to purchase photomasks from the Japanese, is not disclosed in the press release.
Source: 3dnews.ru