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Globalfoundries now has a third customer in the form of the largest fabless company, Qualcomm. Both companies said that they expect acceptance of designs to start later in 2010, using a low-power 45nm process at Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany. However, actual production could come later and possibly not until 2011. Qualcomm has been a foundry customer of Chartered Semiconductor since 2006, which is being merged into Globalfoundries. The companies will also collaborate on low-power devices for a future 28nm node technology.

“With its manufacturing capacity and technology roadmap, Globalfoundries is well positioned to help us enable the next generation of wireless innovation,” noted Jim Clifford, senior vice president and general manager of operations, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “As our customers increasingly demand more performance, lower power, functionality and portability in their mobile experiences, the need for a strong manufacturing and technology foundation is more important than ever before.”

Douglas Grose, Chief Executive Officer of Globalfoundries said, “by bringing the benefits of a leading-edge IDM model to the foundry world, we provide customers with the fastest option to get advanced products to market in volume and at mature yield. We’re pleased to have an opportunity to collaborate with a market leader like Qualcomm as they enable new classes of wireless products and technologies for the future.”

In what Qualcomm describes as its Integrated Fabless Manufacturing (IFM) model, the fabless firm uses a wide number of foundries for chip production, both from a technology and regional basis.

The U.S. based company is now a likely future user of Globalfoundries fab now under construction in NY State. The two companies also intend to explore possible collaboration on die-package interaction and 3D packaging technologies.