IN Brief:
- MPS proprietary power-management processes will be deployed at GlobalFoundries’ 300mm Singapore manufacturing site.
- Volume production is targeted for early 2027 under the companies’ long-term manufacturing agreement.
- Expected applications include automotive electronics, industrial automation and robotics, and power stages for AI and cloud infrastructure.
GlobalFoundries and Monolithic Power Systems have signed a long-term manufacturing agreement that will transfer proprietary MPS power semiconductor processes into GlobalFoundries’ 300mm Singapore fab, with volume production targeted for early 2027.
The agreement is intended to increase manufacturing capacity for power-management products used across automotive electronics, industrial automation and robotics, and AI and cloud infrastructure. Neither company has disclosed wafer volumes, specific device families, detailed process flows, or financial terms.
The process-transfer element is significant because MPS is not simply purchasing capacity on a standard catalogue foundry platform. Its own process technology will be deployed within the GlobalFoundries manufacturing environment, requiring the companies to reproduce device performance, reliability, and yield on the Singapore line before customer products can move into volume production.
MPS develops monolithic power-management ICs and modules for functions including DC-DC conversion, motor control, battery management, and high-current point-of-load power delivery. Its device performance depends on the interaction between circuit design, semiconductor process technology, packaging, and thermal behaviour, making foundry transfer more involved than moving an unchanged digital design between compatible nodes.
Using a 300mm manufacturing line can increase the number of potential die produced from each wafer compared with smaller formats, but wafer diameter alone does not determine manufacturing economics. The process has to achieve stable yields, suitable equipment utilisation, predictable parametric performance, and the reliability required by each target market.
GlobalFoundries’ Singapore site is already used for differentiated and feature-rich semiconductor technologies rather than the smallest leading-edge logic nodes. Its manufacturing portfolio spans mixed-signal, RF, embedded, and other specialist processes that support applications where analogue behaviour, voltage handling, connectivity, and long product lifecycles can matter more than maximum transistor density.
The company is also preparing additional technology ramps at the site. Its 40UX ultra-low-power platform is scheduled for Singapore volume production during 2027, a programme covered in recent IN Electronics reporting on the UX platform. The MPS agreement adds proprietary customer power processes to that broader manufacturing pipeline.
Power-management demand is rising across several different electronics markets, although the design constraints vary considerably. AI servers need increasingly dense and efficient conversion as processor and accelerator power rises, placing pressure on point-of-load regulators, intermediate bus stages, power stages, protection devices, and thermal management.
Automotive and industrial products place greater emphasis on operating temperature, qualification, reliability, electromagnetic compatibility, and long-term supply. Power devices in motor-control, automation, and vehicle architectures can remain in production far longer than consumer computing components, making foundry stability and manufacturing continuity part of the product specification.
That helps explain why mature and differentiated semiconductor manufacturing continues to attract investment despite the attention directed towards advanced logic. Many professional electronic systems depend on analogue, power, RF, embedded-memory, and mixed-signal devices that obtain little benefit from moving to the smallest geometry available.
GlobalFoundries has been extending its position in power and feature-rich semiconductor technologies alongside RF, embedded processing, and advanced packaging. The MPS programme differs from the launch of another GlobalFoundries process platform because the manufacturing line will accommodate technology developed by the customer itself.
Transferring that technology into production requires more than installing a recipe. Process modules have to be matched to the receiving equipment set, statistical control established, reliability data generated, device behaviour correlated, and yields raised to commercial levels before customer supply can depend on the fab.
The early-2027 target therefore leaves a defined engineering programme between announcement and volume output. Successful qualification would give MPS additional capacity for power products while giving GlobalFoundries another long-term customer for its Singapore manufacturing base.
No first production component has yet been named. The next substantive milestone will be qualified wafers and identified products entering volume manufacture, at which point the agreement will begin to affect actual component availability rather than prospective capacity.
