Angela Merkel Visits GlobalFoundries in Dresden!

The Chancellor of Germany visited Fab 1 in Dresden today. I did not get to speak with her personally so I will send her a message here. The fabless semiconductor industry is a force of nature. You can either harness the power or be overwhelmed by it. The United States, Taiwan, China, and South Korea have certainly figured this out. Hopefully Europe will be the next superpower to step up and make semiconductors a National Charter.

In my opinion one of the most important components of a country is their infrastructure and today that means semiconductors. Without a say in the semiconductors that control your infrastructure you have no security, simple as that.

While these words would be wasted on most politicians, Chancellor Merkel has her Doctorate in physical chemistry and is married to a quantum chemist professor. If I were to pick one semiconductor executive to convince the Chancellor to invest in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem it would definitely be Dr. Sanjay Jha, CEO of GlobalFoundries. Sanjay has spent his entire career in the fabless semiconductor industry including 20+ years at Qualcomm and pulling off the exit of the decade selling Motorola Mobility to Google. As CEO of GlobalFoundries Sanjay closed another historic deal acquiring the IBM Semiconductor Division.

Also Read: GLOBALFOUNDRIES Enables Next Generation of Connected Devices with Industry-first Technology Platform

“Fab 1 has a proud history of delivering leading-edge semiconductor technologies that have changed the world,” said Sanjay Jha. “Today, we are here to celebrate the launch of another technology innovation that will drive the next wave of the digital revolution.”

“22nm FD-SOI is a technology made and manufactured in Europe for world markets’, said Rutger Wijburg. “It is the culmination of ground-breaking work done in the French cluster and will strengthen the European SC supply chain.”

“The fabless semiconductor industry is a force of nature” said Daniel Nenni. “You can either harness the power or be overwhelmed by it.”

The only disappointment for me yesterday was the lack of European IP support. 90% of being successful in business is showing up. That is why I drive to Silicon Valley every week. That is why I fly to Taiwan every month. That is why I am in Dresden today. And that is why SemiWiki.com is the most successful semiconductor design portal, because we show up! Two of the largest IP companies are based in the UK. Is that not part of Europe? Who will gain more from having the lowest cost – lowest power process ramp up here in Germany? ARM and Imagination Technologies that’s who. Emailing quotes for a press release doesn’t cut it. You have to show up, absolutely!

And where is Qualcomm on FD-SOI? If they are serious about mobile business in China and other cost and power sensitive markets they had better start showing up for FD-SOI. Just my opinion of course but seriously, QCOM putting all of their eggs in the FinFET basket makes no sense whatsoever. This is the risk adverse company that invented second, third, and even fourth semiconductor manufacturing sourcing. By the way, QCOM is also the company that pushed TSMC and UMC into the incredibly successful 28nm polysilicon process business. Why? Because it was the lowest cost and lowest power that’s why.