GlobalFoundries has signed a $2 billion, five-year agreement to manufacture silicon interposers for TSMC at its Malta, New York, facility, with volume production expected to ramp in the first half of 2028.

Silicon interposers sit beneath AI processors and memory chips inside advanced packages, enabling high-speed communication between them. They have become one of the tightest bottlenecks in AI chip production, as demand for advanced packaging exceeds available manufacturing capacity worldwide.

GlobalFoundries shares rose about 4% in premarket trading following the announcement, made Thursday.

What does the deal cover?

Under the agreement, GlobalFoundries will expand manufacturing capacity in Malta to produce the interposer components for TSMC. The company said Malta is expected to become the first US-based source of silicon interposers used in advanced chip-packaging technologies.

The deal also provides a framework for future capacity expansion as advanced packaging demand grows, according to the company.

Why does it matter for the supply chain?

Advanced packaging has shifted from a back-end afterthought to a primary constraint on AI chip output. TSMC, the dominant producer of leading-edge AI accelerators for customers including Nvidia, has raced to expand its own packaging capacity — CoWoS interposer-based assembly chief among them. Outsourcing interposer fabrication to GlobalFoundries adds a second, US-based source for a critical layer of the AI supply chain.

For GlobalFoundries, which exited the leading-edge logic race years ago, the agreement anchors its Malta fab in a high-growth segment without requiring nanometer-scale process leadership.

Volume production ramping in the first half of 2028 positions Malta capacity to arrive as the next wave of AI accelerator demand tightens packaging supply further, giving GlobalFoundries a framework it can scale if interposer shortages persist.