GlobalFoundries heads to the big apple.
GlobalFoundries is the spin-off fab company from AMD, currently manufacturing all of AMD's CPUs but they're not content with just that - they've got their eyes on the future.
Since spending and manufacturing is low during this economic period, the bigwigs at GloFo are investing in their infrastructure to prepare for when the market picks back up.
The construction of Fab 2 isn't really the story here, but rather that they've chosen to place it in New York, something that is very smart and quite surprising at the same time.
Lured there by the short distance to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineery at a nearby University, a partnership with IBM and an investment by the city of US$1.2 billion, Fab 2's construction is kicking off this year.
It's going to create plenty of construction jobs, and lots of fulltime jobs when completed, so this investment makes sense - and the whole facility is designed to be modular, with up to three extra facilities added in if demand increases.
This is a great sign that GloFo is finally getting some momentum building up, and hopefully the competition for chip manufacturing ramps up as the economy returns - meaning even cheaper chips for us.
Head to the Bright Side of News for a lot of detail about GlobalFoundries' Fab 2.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012