"The Car Will Become A Computer On Wheels"; Ford Motors Announces Alliance With Chipmaker GlobalFoundries For Semiconductor Manufacturing

Auto major Ford Motor Company and leading chipmaker GlobalFoundries announced a strategic collaboration aimed at advancing semiconductor manufacturing and technology development within the United States and bolstering chip supplies for Ford and the U.S. automotive industry.

GlobalFoundries will enhance semiconductor supply for Ford’s current vehicle lineup. Both the companies will pursue joint research and development to address the growing demand for feature-rich chips to support the automotive industry. As part of the partnership, the companies will build semiconductor solutions for Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), battery management systems, and in-vehicle networking for an automated, connected, and electrified future.

The companies will also explore semiconductor manufacturing opportunities to support the automotive industry.

“GlobalFoundries is committed to building innovative alliances with the world’s leading companies to enable the features in products that are pervasive throughout people’s lives,” said Tom Caulfield, GlobalFoundries CEO.

“Our agreement with Ford is a key step forward in strengthening our cooperation and partnership with automakers to spur innovation, bring new features to market faster, and ensure long-term, supply-demand balance.” he added

Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO, noted that the partnership is just the beginning as the U.S auto major plans to vertically integrate key technologies and capabilities that will differentiate it from the competition.

Auto behemoth GM also announced that it is pursuing partnerships with various chipmakers including TSMC, NXP, Qualcomm in anticipation of increased demand for electric vehicles and autonomous cars.

Global automobile majors have been heavily hit by semiconductor shortage

Increasing most innovations in the automobile sector are based on electronics or software with cars becoming what experts call as "computer on wheels".

According to management consulting firm Roland Berger, OEMs are taking more control over the value chain and critical functionality by expanding their capabilities by adding significant resources for module integration, software development and even semiconductor design.

Semiconductor players are moving towards functional integration of their chips (system-on-a-chip (SoC), system-in-a-package (SiP), etc), the firm noted.

As automotive semiconductors now combine more and more fundamental functionalities resulting in increasing complexity and development costs for embedded software, semiconductor companies are now aiming to move downstream and capture value with higher levels of integration