Stefan Mileschin

The Chinese government has a policy of building up its own semiconductor manufacturing and now a leading electronics pundit has suggested that by putting in a bid for Abu Dhabi firm Globalfoundries (GloFo) it could be “pushing at an open door”.

Peter Clarke, writing in Electronics Times, points to the fact that a Chinese consortium will raise £23 billion to buy US memory company Micron – a deal that the US government is likely to oppose. And another consortium wants to buy sensor manufacturer Omnivision.

Clarke bases his analysis on a story in Taiwanese daily Digitimes and he believes that Abu Dhabi isn’t as interested in developing its own semiconductor industry as it once was.

GloFo was spun off as a separate company by AMD some years ago, and the acquisition of its technology would take China a long way towards establishing itself as a major global player in the industry.

Further, GloFo, as Clarke points out, is a private company and wouldn’t face the kind of regulatory scrutiny that a Micron acquisition would face.

http://www.techeye.net/chips/could-t...-snap-up-glofo