TSMC taps GlobalFoundries to bolster US silicon interposer production in $2B deal

A hole in America's domestic supply chain is closing. US-based wafer-fab GlobalFoundries announced a $2 billion partnership with TSMC on Thursday to shore up American manufacturing of advanced semiconductors, like those used in AI datacenters. Under the multi-year deal, GloFo will produce silicon interposers for TSMC's chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging spec at its Malta, New York fab site. Silicon interposers are essential to the production of many multi-die chip assemblies like GPUs and AI accelerators. These interposers sit under the compute logic and memory and provide a higher speed and lower power path for communications between the chips than would be possible using conventional organic packaging. Basically every chip that employs high-bandwidth memory (HBM) today relies on some form of interposer or interconnect bridge to stitch everything together. GlobalFoundries' partnership with TSMC appears to target the former. Advanced packaging has become a major bottleneck for American chip manufacturing. …