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GlobalFoundries campus in Malta, N.Y.
Mary Thompson | CNBC

Semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries debuted on the Nasdaq this week, valued at over $25 billion, as it became increasingly evident that a global chip shortage could persist through 2023 or later.

Now GlobalFoundries needs to convince public market investors that the company is riding a wave of increased demand for all sorts of microchips, that won’t fizzle out after pandemic-related supply issues abate, and that it can increase profitability even as it spends billions on a capital intensive business.

“I think for the better part of the next five to 10 years, we’re going to be chasing supply not demand,” GlobalFoundries CEO Tom Caulfield said in an interview with CNBC. GlobalFoundries’ clients include Qualcomm, MediaTek, NXP Semiconductors and Qorvo.

Automotive companies and home appliance makers have been struggling for months to obtain enough chips for building products, and now the problem is spreading to electronics manufacturers and their suppliers. Apple, for example, said it will miss out on more than $6 billion in sales this holiday season because of chip shortages. Intel likewise blamed its lower CPU sales on shortages in power supply and networking chips.

But the shortages aren’t for the most advanced chips that use the latest manufacturing methods. Instead, the shortages are for what are often called “legacy nodes,” or semiconductors that use older technology to perform functions like power management, connecting to displays or enabling wireless connections.

Those are the kinds of chips that GlobalFoundries, a third-party silicon-wafer foundry, specializes in manufacturing for its clients, Caulfield explained.

“That’s where the bigger part of the shortage is, because there’s been underinvestment in that,” Caulfield said. “For me, we’re happy to let the bigger companies kind of serve that single-digit nanometer market, and we will be the very best in our differentiated technology.”

Profitability in the foundry business is linked to utilization, or the rate that the foundry’s factories are running around the clock. GlobalFoundries had a utilization rate of 84% in 2020, but Caulfield said that was related to slowdowns at the start of the pandemic.

“I would say, since August of 2020, we can’t make enough. Every day, we try to squeeze out as much as we can. I would say we’re over 100%,” Caulfield said, adding that the company’s wafer capacity was sold out through the end of 2023.

Caulfield said that GlobalFoundries made a strategic decision in 2018 to stop developing the bleeding edge chip manufacturing technologies foundries like TSMC and Samsung are investing in, and instead focus on less advanced but still-essential semiconductors for its clients.

Foundries have low-margin business models and face high labor, equipment and raw materials costs. In its prospectus, GlobalFoundries said it recorded a gross margin of close to 11% in the first half of 2021.

Of the $2.6 billion GlobalFoundries raised on the public markets, $1.5 billion will be spent on capital expenditures to increase capacity to fill demand, Caulfield said. It operates plants in the U.S., Germany and Singapore.

GlobalFoundries stock closed 1.3% lower on Thursday, under its debut price of $47, before rising over 5% on Friday to close at $48.74.

The company is still over 85% owned by Mubadala, the United Arab Emirates state investment fund. Mubadala took control of the company when AMD spun off its manufacturing arm, which became GlobalFoundries, and focused on chip design in 2008.

Caulfield said that Mubadala will reduce its ownership stake in GlobalFoundries in the coming years but will still continue to support the manufacturer.

“Over the next, call it five to six years, in a very orderly and transparent way, [Mubadala will] take some of their ownership out to get more balanced,” Caulfield said.

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Cryptocurrencies rise to start the week, bitcoin jumps above $102,000

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Cryptocurrencies rise to start the week, bitcoin jumps above 2,000

The photo illustration shows the Bitcoin cryptocurrency on November 12, 2024 in Shanghai, China.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

The price of bitcoin leapt back above $100,000 to start the first full trading week of the new year.

The flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 4% at $102,234, according to Coin Metrics. The broader crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 index, gained more than 3%. Bitcoin and ether are coming off their best weeks since Dec. 6, while Solana had its best week since Nov. 22.

“Overall, we are in a bullish environment and traders appear to be risk-on as we head into the new year,” Mario Jurina, CEO at crypto swaps platform Jumper.Exchange. “With Trump’s election set to be certified today, and January often being a bullish month — six of the past 10 years saw positive price action — it’s no wonder markets are moving upward.”

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Bitcoin rises above $100,000 to start the week

The moves in crypto coincided with a rebound in tech stocks as Nvidia and shares of other chip names jumped. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was last higher by about 1.7%.

Crypto stocks Coinbase and MicroStrategy advanced nearly 6% and 5%, respectively. MicroStrategy Monday morning reported it has purchased another 1,070 bitcoins for about $101 million, bringing its total bitcoin holdings to 447,470.

Activity is coming back into the crypto market after a post-election rally that was driven by promises of a more supportive regulatory environment. The optimism sent prices rocketing for weeks before cooling at the end of the year. The price of bitcoin is expected to roughly double under the new administration this year, with some price predictions, like Fundstrat’s Tom Lee’s, being as high as $250,000.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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Amazon’s Ring announces smart smoke alarm as CES tech palooza kicks off

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Amazon's Ring announces smart smoke alarm as CES tech palooza kicks off

Ring security cameras are displayed on a shelf at a Target store on June 01, 2023 in Novato, California. 

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Amazon‘s Ring is partnering with fire safety product maker Kidde to launch a connected smoke alarm, the company announced Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The companies plan to launch Kidde smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that integrate Ring’s home security technology and can deliver alerts to the Ring mobile app. The Kidde Smart Smoke Alarm with Ring will cost $54.97, while the Kidde Smart Smoke and CO Alarm with Ring will cost $74.97. Both products will ship in April.

As part of the launch, Ring will also roll out a $5-per-month subscription service that gives users access to round-the-clock professional monitoring and emergency dispatchers.

Amazon acquired Ring in 2015 for a reported $1 billion. The home security company is primarily known for its video doorbell devices, which allow users to record activity in front of their homes, though it has expanded to include a portfolio of products ranging from camera-equipped floodlights to flying security camera drones.

Amazon doesn’t disclose unit sales for its Ring division, but Ring and rival home security company SimpliSafe comprise one-fifth of the U.S. market for professional monitoring systems, according to data from market research firm Parks Associates. Ring CEO Liz Hamren, who took the helm from founder Jamie Siminoff in March 2023, told Bloomberg last May that the company “recently” became profitable.

Users aren’t required to subscribe to Ring Home, the company’s program that enables video recording storage and other security features, in order to access the new smoke alarm service.

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Global chip stocks climb as Foxconn’s bumper results show a continuation of the AI boom

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Global chip stocks climb as Foxconn's bumper results show a continuation of the AI boom

Jakub Porzyck | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Global semiconductor stocks climbed on Monday after contract electronics giant Foxconn announced record fourth-quarter revenues, suggesting the artificial intelligence boom has far more room to run.

Hon Hai Precision Industry, which does business as Foxconn internationally, said in a Sunday statement that the company’s fourth-quarter revenue totaled 2.1 trillion New Taiwan dollars ($63.9 billion), growing 15% year-over-year.

Foxconn — which is a supplier to Apple — also set a record, posting the highest fourth-quarter revenue ever in company history, according to the statement.

The firm’s bumper revenue performance was driven by growth in its cloud and networking products — which includes AI servers like those designed by the likes of chipmaker Nvidia — and components and other products segments.

Computing products and smart consumer electronics — which numbers iPhone and other smartphones — saw “slight declines,” Foxconn said.

Shares of several semiconductor firms across Asia, Europe and the U.S. rose, as a result.

In Asia, TSMC hit a record high Monday and closed 1.9% higher in Taiwan.

The largest semiconductor manufacturer globally, TSMC produces chips for the likes of AMD and Nvidia.

Other Asian chip firms also logged share price gains — South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung rose nearly 10% and 4%, respectively.

In Europe, globally critical semiconductor equipment firm ASML saw its shares jump almost 6%, while fellow Dutch chip company ASMI’s stock rose almost 5%. Germany’s Infineon surged more than 6%.

The momentum in semi stocks could last as they have great earnings momentum, says Jim Cramer

Paris-listed shares of European contract chipmaker STMicroelectronics rose nearly 6%.

Stateside, Nvidia got a boost from the Foxconn numbers, climbing 2% in U.S. premarket trading.

Also boosting chip stocks on Monday was Microsoft’s announcement at the end of last week about plans to invest $80 billion in 2025 on data centers that can handle AI workloads.

Microsoft is one of several tech giants splurging on GPUs (graphics processing units) from Nvidia to train and run the most advanced AI models.

AMD, Nvidia’s closest rival, rose 3% in pre-market trading Monday, while fellow U.S. chip firms Qualcomm and Broadcom both climbed almost 2%.

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