GLOBALFOUNDRIES buys Smartcom’s PDK team

Editor: Lisa Lucke

GLOBALFOUNDRIES has acquired the process design kit (PDK) engineering team from Smartcom Bulgaria AD to enhance GF’s scale and capabilities.

The deal stipulates that GF will acquire Smartcom’s PDK development team of more than 125 employees, which will be led by industry veteran Dr. Dobromir Gaydazhiev, who has led the business since its inception in 2003. Smartcom’s Sofia, Bulgaria operations build on GF’s long established Fab 1 operations in Dresden, Germany, the company’s Bump Test Facility (BTF) and the AMTC mask house, a joint venture with Toppan. Together, the three facilities employ more than 3500 employees and represent an investment of more than USD 12billion, which are central to Silicon Saxony, Europe’s most significant microelectronics cluster. “Today is an exciting day for GF. As we continue to offer more feature-rich differentiated solutions for our clients, PDKs are becoming increasingly important,” said Thomas Caulfield, CEO of GF. “With the acquisition of Smartcom’s PDK development team, we are enhancing the depth and breadth of our capabilities and capacity in Europe and across the globe. We have worked with the Sofia team for many years and the quality of their work is unmatched in the industry. We fully expect to expand our investment in our worldwide PDK organization to meet the growing demands of our clients.” “We are excited to join GF at this time and to be part of GF’s growth strategy,” said Dr. Dobromir Gaydazhiev, managing director PDK Services Bulgaria EAD. “Our collaboration goes back many years and our progress has been largely fueled by GF. The team and I are looking forward to becoming fully integrated into GF’s design enablement processes and to helping enable our clients’ products with our PDKs. We also appreciate the opportunity to engage in European programs and projects that bring together RTOs, IDMs, Design System Companies with Foundries to advance Europe’s capabilities and capacities in microelectronics.” The deal is expected to close in December 2019.

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