GlobalFoundries: Innovation keeps us competitive in worldwide market

ESSEX JUNCTION - Dale Miller, the senior location executive at GlobalFoundries who replaced Janette Bombardier, is 55 years old. He has spent 35 of those years working at the chip-making facility, most of them for the Essex Junction facility's former owner, IBM.

IBM paid GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion in July 2015 to take over its microelectronics business, which included the Vermont fab — as chip-making facilities are known.

The deal was a head-scratcher for many, but Jim Keller, a former IBM spokesman who now works for GlobalFoundries, explained that IBM was no longer in the chip-making business and didn't want to make the capital investments fabs require. 

Two years on, Keller describes the deal as a win for both companies. GlobalFoundries is a chip company — the second largest in the world — so IBM is still getting the chips it needs, from the same team it put together, without the responsibility for sinking money into its fabs.

GlobalFoundries has invested more than $200 million in the Essex Junction fab in the two years it has owned it, according to Miller.

"It's a very capital intensive business," Miller said. "You need to have tools that are going to be able to produce features and functions the next generation of technology will require."

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Miller takes GlobalFoundries' investment as a "positive sign." The company has struggled, however, to find enough production workers. Last week, GlobalFoundries increased starting pay from $13 per hour to $14.50 per hour.

"I'm still short 50 workers today," Miller said. "It's been tough. I would say we've had a steady need for 50 people since February. We hire some, we lose some. We can't seem to get to the total we need."

GlobalFoundries has about 2,600 employees today, down from a peak of about 8,000 employees at the fab under IBM ownership. Since taking over in 2015, GlobalFoundries has had several layoffs and voluntary buyouts. Spokesman Jim Keller put the employee count at 3,000 in Sept. 2015 when GlobalFoundries announced its first round of voluntary buyouts.

Frank Cioffi, president of Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, said the difficulties GlobalFoundries is experiencing finding entry-level workers is a problem throughout the Northeast.

Cioffi is chairing a state workforce development board that will report to the Legislature in November to address the problem in Vermont. Cioffi said one of the steps he'll recommend is to open career and technical education to 9th and 10th grade students in addition to the 11th and 12th graders who currently have access to these programs.

He said that out of 7,500 kids who graduate high school every year in Vermont, about 3,000 are ill-prepared to make an income, or bring any significant skills into the workplace, and are not going on to higher education.

"We're failing these students in our education system, because we're not preparing them," Cioffi said.

Miller joined IBM straight out of Vermont Technical College, where he earned an associate's degree in electrical engineering. He started in the test area, where the various chips and components the fab produces are put through their paces to make sure they're good.

Miller was a third generation IBMer; his grandfathers, mom, stepmom and dad all worked at IBM.

"I said I wasn't going to work for IBM," Miller remembered. "I wanted to be different. Obviously that didn't happen."

Like IBM before it, GlobalFoundries is relying on innovation to keep the Essex Junction fab relevant and competitive. As the Burlington Free Press reported in September 2014 when rumors of a sale to GlobalFoundries were circulating, the team of engineers and technicians in Essex Junction were responsible for coming up with cellphone chips that put the fab at the leading edge of the industry.

Engineers focused on two technologies, one for power amplification and the other for switching among the multiple radio frequencies used in the smartest smartphones.

To put the success of the chips into perspective, Mark Jaffe, who led the switching technology team, said that when the switches were being developed, the thinking was the worldwide market might require 60 silicon wafers worth of chips a day. IBM hoped to capture half of that market.

"Now we're selling over 1,000 wafers a day, and we could be selling more if we had more capacity," Jaffe said in 2014. "The demand has been incredible."

Innovation continues at GlobalFoundries with the same team IBM put together, and it isn't confined to product development. In the fab's test area, where Miller began his career, engineers are coming up with unique solutions to keep dozens of multi-million dollar machines capable of testing the latest technologies.

Jason DiRosa, director of test development, points to a machine roughly the size of a large conference table.

DiRosa explains that the engineering team modified the machine with a new power supply that allowed it to test newer products despite the fact it's 20 years old. 

"This tool would have been obsolete," DiRosa said. "We extended its useful life, which allows us not to have to invest in new equipment as much, because that just adds to our cost."

DiRosa moves on to another machine with an even more dramatic modification, adding lasers required for tests on a new technology known as silicon photonics. With silicon photonics, data is transferred among computer chips by lasers rather than electrical wires, carrying far more data in less time.

John Ferrario, senior manager of RF photonics, is proud of the fact that several of his engineers are young Vermonters who received their primary education in the state.

He introduces Becca Percy, who grew up in Stowe and has a Phd in electrical engineering. Percy developed a tester for satellite to airplane communications using 5th generation, or 5G, telecommunications standards.

The obelisk-shaped tester, which the Burlington Free Press was not allowed to photograph, utilizes some of the same technology that make stealth aircraft invisible to radar.

"Made in Vermont." Ferrario said. "Not only Cabot cheese, but also state-of-the-art 5G testers."

Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com.