GlobalFoundries and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) have signed a multi-year, $2 billion manufacturing agreement to establish a US supply of silicon interposers for TSMC’s chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, or CoWoS, advanced packaging ecosystem.

Under the agreement, GlobalFoundries will expand capacity at its Malta, New York, facility and manufacture the interposers for TSMC. The companies expect volume production to begin ramping in the first half of 2028, according to GlobalFoundries’ announcement on October 8.

A five-year manufacturing pact

The agreement has an initial term of five years and includes a framework for future capacity expansion as customer demand grows. GlobalFoundries said the added capacity would support multiple product generations and include embedded deep trench capacitor components.

GlobalFoundries characterized the project as the first US-based source of silicon interposers for advanced packaging. That description is a company claim; the announcement did not disclose annual output, customer allocations or a schedule for capacity additions beyond the production ramp expected in the first half of 2028.

The deal’s $2 billion value and five-year structure were also reported by Reuters. The news agency said GlobalFoundries shares rose about 4 percent in premarket trading after the announcement.

Why interposers matter for AI systems

Silicon interposers sit beneath processors and memory devices inside an advanced chip package. They provide dense, high-speed connections between computing dies and high-bandwidth memory, allowing several components to operate together as one system.

TSMC says its CoWoS platform is designed for high-performance computing and artificial intelligence products by integrating system-on-chip devices with high-bandwidth memory stacks. The platform includes silicon-interposer, redistribution-layer and local-silicon-interconnect variants for different package designs.

That packaging layer has become increasingly important as AI accelerators combine more computing chiplets with larger pools of high-bandwidth memory. The GlobalFoundries agreement adds an external manufacturing source for a key CoWoS component while TSMC continues to operate the broader packaging ecosystem.

GlobalFoundries said it will provide manufacturing services to TSMC rather than produce the complete CoWoS package. The announcement did not identify end customers or specific AI chips that will use interposers made in New York.

Capacity race extends beyond Taiwan

The agreement comes as TSMC expands advanced packaging capacity in Taiwan. In September, a TSMC-anchored advanced packaging park broke ground in Kaohsiung, part of Taiwan’s effort to build a larger supply base around high-end chip assembly and packaging.

The GlobalFoundries arrangement extends part of that supply chain to the United States. GlobalFoundries operates semiconductor manufacturing sites in the United States, Europe and Asia, including a facility in Singapore, while TSMC remains the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a central supplier for AI processor companies.

For TSMC, the pact offers an additional source of interposers without transferring responsibility for the complete advanced package. For GlobalFoundries, it creates a long-term manufacturing role in the AI packaging chain even though the company does not compete at the leading-edge logic nodes used for many AI accelerators.

Taiwan breaks ground on Kaohsiung advanced-packaging park anchored by TSMC