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 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 spun out of AMD's manufacturing operations in 2009 and 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, it does not manufacture at the leading edge; it focuses on mature and speciality nodes for automotive, aerospace, and IoT customers. GlobalFoundries went public on the Nasdaq in 2021 and is a significant employer in the Dresden semiconductor corridor, giving it relevance to UK and European deep-tech investors and startups scouting European foundry partnerships.

In June 2026, GlobalFoundries' Dresden facility became the site of the first fully European sovereign end-to-end chip manufacturing flow, completed with Qualinx on 10 June 2026: a defence-grade GNSS chip produced without design data leaving Europe, using a Deutsche Telekom data layer. The Trusted European Flow programme targets wider commercial qualification by end-2026 and series production in 2027. This represents a significant pivot from the Crolles setback: where Crolles exposed the limits of subsidy-led attraction of US foundries, Dresden demonstrates that an existing GlobalFoundries fab can serve as the anchor for a credible European sovereign manufacturing capability.