January 11, 2012 - GlobalFoundries says it plans to build a $2 billion R&D facility at its Fab 8 campus in Saratoga County, NY. The new Technology Development Center (TDC) will span more than 500,000 sq. ft of "flexible space" for various technology development and manufacturing activities, including cleanroom and lab space. Construction is planned to begin in early 2013 and completed in late 2014.

The TDC will focus on a variety of semiconductor development and manufacturing work "to support the transition to new technology nodes," and development of "innovative capabilities to deliver value to customers beyond the traditional approach of shrinking transistors," according to the company. Broadly speaking, the TEC is planned to be a collaborative space to develop "end-to-end solutions covering the full spectrum of silicon technology," from EUV lithography photomasks to new interconnect and packaging technologies enabling 3D chip stacking, "and everything in between."

"As the industry shifts from the PC era to a market focused on mobile devices, we have seen increasingly strong interest from customers in migrating to advanced nodes on an accelerated schedule," stated GlobalFoundries CEO Ajit Manocha. "To help facilitate this migration, we are making significant investments in strengthening our technology leadership, including growing our workforce and adding new capabilities to make Fab 8 the hub of our global technology operations." Toward that end, "the new TDC will help us bridge between the lab and the fab by taking research conducted with partners and further developing the technologies to make them ready for volume manufacturing," he added

Other regional New York State leaders chimed in with appreciation and optimism for the project's synergy with the local and regional economy. "New York has become the world's hub for advanced semiconductor research and now, the Technology Development Center will further help ensure the innovations developed in New York, in collaboration with our research institutions, are manufactured in New York," said Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. "New York State's public investments to develop CNSE as a hub of innovation coupled with the private investments of GLOBALFOUNDRIES are prime examples of best practices for public-private partnerships linking research, innovation and production that have made New York a globally recognized center of innovation," added Charles W. Wessner, director of the National Academies' Innovation Program.

GlobalFoundries began developing its Fab 8 project in the summer of mid-2009; today its campus includes approximately 2 million sq. ft of development. The company has continued to make investments in manufacturing production as well as technology development, including work underway on 20nm and 14nm technology nodes.