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—Part of an ongoing EE Times series: A Vulnerable U.S. Electronics Supply Chain. Previous parts can be found here.
GlobalFoundries’ renewed contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) provides a “high mix” of technologies, yet still leaves a gap for more chipmakers to fill, a former top-level official in the U.S. government’s semiconductor procurement program told EE Times.
With an initial award of $17.3 million this month and a 10-year spending ceiling of $3.1 billion, the new contract lets the DoD and its contractors use GF’s secure facilities in the U.S.
“The DoD requires a high mix of technologies at low volumes,” Daniel Marrujo said. He was previously chief strategy officer at Defense Microelectronics Activity, the organization that issued the original contract to GF nearly 20 years ago. “You need a spectrum of technologies because you have different types of warfare environments.”
Marrujo noted that other chipmakers like Microchip help fulfill DoD demand. The key for the DoD is gaining access to capacity at chip foundries that prioritize much larger customers, he said.
Intel Foundry Services (IFS) is entering the competition. Defense contractors Boeing and Northrop Grumman earlier this year joined IFS in the second phase of the DoD’s Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes Commercial (RAMP-C) program to make leading-edge, custom chips and other products essential for DoD systems.
SkyWater is also a DoD chip supplier.
In April, Intel announced the delivery of the first multi-chip package prototypes created under the State-of-the-Art Heterogeneous Integrated Packaging (SHIP) program for the DoD. The SHIP program gives the DoD access to Intel’s advanced heterogeneous-packaging technologies, including embedded multi-die interconnect bridge (EMIB), 3D Foveros and Co-EMIB.
Access to foundries key
The importance of the GF contract is access, Marrujo said, who is now president of Trusted Strategic Solutions, a defense-industry consultant. Under the trusted foundry contract, the DoD can use GF’s fabs in Burlington, Vt., as well as Malta and East Fishkill in New York, he said.
Still, the $17 million in the initial contract will give the DoD “very limited access” to production runs at GF, he said. “You’re going to get one run at 14-nm, low-power process (LPP) or 12-nm LPP. You’re going to get one run at 45 nm.”
Marrujo estimated that the DoD accounts for less than 1% of the purchasing power within the chip-design world that includes giants like Nvidia and Apple. The DoD business is worth about $3 billion a year, according to IFS.
“How do you get a company like GlobalFoundries that gets hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of chips purchased at a single time from a single commercial entity?” he asks. “Access within the U.S. is a challenge. There’s so much dependency on overseas manufacturing.”
GF helps the DoD prevent shortages, Ezra Hall, head of aerospace and defense at GF, told EE Times.
“We know what the impacts can be,” he said. “You can’t build the plane; you can’t build the satellite. That’s a problem that we address with the assurance of supply.”
The $52 billion CHIPS Act is aimed at minimizing reliance on overseas manufacturing, Marrujo said.
“It won’t eliminate it, but the intent is to minimize it here domestically,” he added.
GF applied this month for CHIPS Act funding. The company’s two submitted applications are for capacity expansion and modernization of its U.S. manufacturing plants.
A CHIPS program office study last year highlighted that the main deficiencies of the U.S. are in optoelectronics, microcontrollers and analog RF technologies, Marrujo said, adding that the most sensitive area is chip assembly and test, which mostly is done in Asia.
The GF-DoD relationship, however, doesn’t address all portions of the supply chain, Marrujo said.
GF’s radio-frequency logic, silicon-on-insulator or analog mixed-signal “are highly critical,” he said, adding that the DoD still needs more exotic technologies like silicon carbide, gallium nitride and indium phosphide.
Long relationship
GlobalFoundries has a decades-long contractual relationship with the DoD that the chipmaker obtained through an acquisition in New York eight years ago.
“The acquisition of IBM Microelectronics brought that business over,” said Hall, who was with the IBM unit when it won the DoD contract.
GF’s Fab 9 facility in Vermont was the first trusted foundry in the world when it was accredited in 2007, Hall said. “That’s 20 years supporting the DoD and all of their requirements for building microelectronics securely on shore.”
The contract allows a range of Defense programs that place orders for chips to benefit from pre-negotiated terms and conditions.
It’s the most cost-efficient and taxpayer-friendly way for the DoD to access microelectronics, Hall said.
The contract supports chip prototyping, allowing the DoD’s academic, government agency and industry partners to use GF’s U.S. facilities, he added.
The chipmaker provides a shuttle program, as well as multi-project wafers, for the DoD—which sets the schedule and enjoys the efficiency of commercial-scale foundries for prototypes. The use of GF’s foundry capacity is more efficient than building a dedicated fab or dedicated corridor for the DoD programs, which would then have chipmaking tools that are potentially underutilized, he said.
Long design cycle
The DoD differs from typical foundry customers due to the rigorous standards it needs to maintain.
“It’s a long production timeline,” Hall said. “They take great care in creating the chip designs and system qualifications. There necessarily is a little bit longer design cycle than a chip for consumer products. Generally, by the time that technology goes to production for that defense article, it might be a few years longer than the same adoption timeline on a consumer device.”
Hall gives the example of the power transistors GF is making for the DoD that he said are more than just legacy technology.
“We’re doing that at our facility in Vermont, and other exotic types of materials that are innovating at 180 nm and larger technologies, because that’s what’s needed for high-voltage, high-powered switches,” he said.
