GlobalFoundries rumored to ake over IBM manufacturing capacity

"We assume GlobalFoundries will purchase IBM’s semiconductor division and that Hynix/Micron will buy up the remaining smaller memory firms," said an analysts from Future Horizons research company in an additional comment to the call for the European Union to fund transition to 450-mm wafer processing in Europe.

450mm fabs cost $10 billion to build. Meanwhile, many chips nowadays become commodity products. Moreover, the margins of the foundry businesses are shrinking, which is why the contract semiconductor business make a great sense for Abu Dhabi, which is looking forward for long-term. For Europe in general, with the exception of countries like the Russian Federation (which budget is plagued by Vladimir Putin's military ambitions amid necessity for high oil and gas prices, which is why no investments into leading-edge manufacturing will be made while this president keeps office) and Germany (which needs to keep high-tech manufacturing at home, but does not want to support companies, yet in can). Given the situation, it hardly makes sense for private groups to help to invest into semiconductor manufacturing facilities due to lack of spare cash.