GlobalFoundries

GlobalFoundries triggered a Major setback for European semiconductor policy when it suspended the joint Crolles fab project with STMicroelectronics in early 2024. The suspension halted a planned €7.5bn facility in Crolles, southeastern France, that had received French and EU backing and was intended to produce chips at the 10nm node using FD-SOI process technology. GlobalFoundries cited insufficient customer demand to justify the investment, a decision that drew criticism from the French government and exposed the speculative Nature of the Chips Act's demand-side assumptions.

GlobalFoundries is a US-headquartered semiconductor contract manufacturer — a foundry — that was spun out of AMD's manufacturing operations in 2009 and is majority owned by the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. Its main fabs are in Malta (New York), Singapore, and Dresden, Germany. Unlike TSMC and Samsung, GlobalFoundries does not manufacture at the leading edge (below 12nm); instead it focuses on mature and speciality nodes for automotive, aerospace, and IoT customers. GlobalFoundries went public on the Nasdaq in 2021.

The Crolles suspension raised systemic questions about the EU Chips Act's reliance on voluntary private investment. France had offered substantial subsidies to anchor GlobalFoundries and STMicroelectronics in Crolles; the project's collapse left STMicroelectronics without a strategic partner for the site and contributed to a downgrading of market sentiment toward European chipmaker stocks. The episode is now cited alongside Intel's Magdeburg cancellation as evidence that Europe's semiconductor ambitions were predicated on private capital that was never as committed as policymakers assumed.