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GlobalFoundries to produce silicon interposers for TSMC's CoWoS in the US — Five-year agreement valued at $2 billion
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GlobalFoundries and TSMC have entered into a five-year manufacturing agreement valued at $2 billion under which GlobalFoundries will produce silicon interposers for TSMC's CoWoS advanced packaging technology. The arrangement will establish a U.S.-based manufacturing source for these components, which will enable TSMC's clients to brand their products as completely made and packaged in America. Volume production is scheduled to ramp up in the first half of 2028.
"By providing manufacturing service using GF's trusted U.S. manufacturing footprint, we are creating a secure, scalable source of essential advanced-packaging elements that will help customers accelerate innovation and strengthen the semiconductor supply chain," said Ed Kaste, senior vice president of CMOS Business at GlobalFoundries.
Under the agreement, GlobalFoundries will expand manufacturing capacity at its fabrication facility in Malta, NY, to produce silicon interposers used in TSMC's CoWoS-S packaging ecosystem. Such interposers are custom pieces of silicon that provide high-density connections between logic chiplets and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks and enable the creation of complex multi-die processors for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. The companies have not disclosed the production capacity to be installed, but the agreement provides a framework for additional expansion depending on demand.
Silicon interposers used for TSMC's CoWoS-S packaging technology are customized for particular processor designs, as their configurations depend on the number, dimensions, and placement of logic chiplets and HBM stacks, as well as the interconnections between them.
In addition, interposers must meet the power-delivery requirements of specific processors, including power distribution networks and embedded deep trench capacitors (DTC), and their designs must account for signal integrity, power integrity, and thermal characteristics. Furthermore, large interposers may exceed the maximum lithographic reticle size and therefore require stitching, so it remains to be seen how well GlobalFoundries will stitch such interposers for extra-large system-in-packages (SiPs).
While certain manufacturing processes and structural elements can be standardized, the resulting interposers are generally application-specific. GlobalFoundries will not be a TSMC supplier, but a subcontractor that will manufacture multiple customer-specific interposer designs rather than standardized components that require close cooperation with TSMC. Specifically, GlobalFoundries will need to ensure compatibility between its design rules, manufacturing processes, and qualification procedures so that interposers produced by GF can be used in TSMC's CoWoS packaging flows. It remains to be seen how the companies will handle ownership and protection of intellectual property, as interposer layouts may incorporate technologies and production methods specific to TSMC and its customers.
By transferring some interposer production to GlobalFoundries, TSMC could free up some of its own manufacturing resources and increase availability of components required for advanced packaging.
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Manufacturing silicon interposers is only one part of the CoWoS-S production process. The technology also requires attaching logic chiplets and HBM stacks to interposers using high-precision bonding equipment, assembling the resulting structures onto organic substrates, and then performing electrical testing. These operations require dedicated manufacturing capacity, which the agreement between the two companies does not address.