DRESDEN, Germany & DELFT, The Netherlands today announced the successful completion of the first fully European end-to-end semiconductor production chain at the GlobalFoundries factory in Dresden, based on FDX technology. This milestone demonstrates that security-critical chips for aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure can be designed, manufactured, and delivered entirely within Europe.
Within this collaboration, Qualinx acted as the first reference customer with an advanced GNSS SoC design for secure Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) applications. The QLX3xx design focuses on sovereign GNSS-based PNT solutions for aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure, such as robust time and synchronization networks and highly integrated, ultra-energy-efficient GNSS receivers for edge applications.
GF and Qualinx set a new standard for European Sovereign Production.
Co-financed via the European Chips Act , GF is working on the realization of European sovereign production . Safety-critical steps in the production process – from the receipt of customer designs to safe masking services and wafer production – are carried out entirely within Europe. This creates a fully European supply chain for safety-critical semiconductors. Sensitive customer design data and physical materials remain entirely within the European Economic Area (EEA). Production steps outside Europe are deliberately avoided to comply with regulations and the safety requirements of governments, public institutions, and system integrators.
“We are demonstrating that Europe can rely on a secure, end-to-end semiconductor supply chain that meets the highest requirements of the aerospace and defense industries,” said Dr. Manfred Horstmann, Senior Vice President and General Manager at GlobalFoundries. “Our collaboration with Qualinx marks the first operational milestone: it proves that complex, safety-critical ASIC designs for aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure can already be produced on an industrial scale today via a fully European, reliable production process.”
“This first secure product demonstrates that a fully European supply chain – from mask services to wafer production – is already a reality today,” says Tom Trill, CEO of Qualinx. “Together with GlobalFoundries, we have optimized our Digital RF technology for FDX within a secure end-to-end supply chain. This has resulted in the introduction of our ultra-energy-efficient, reconfigurable GNSS SoC and Analog Front End. This milestone underscores our ability to deliver reliable, energy-efficient solutions while maintaining full control over IP, data, and the supply chain within Europe.”
Roadmap: Scaling up European Sovereign Production.
The tape-out realized together with Qualinx marks the first operational milestone on the way to a fully automated trusted European flow, which GlobalFoundries aims to implement in Dresden by the end of 2026. From 2027, customers in the aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure sectors will utilize this production chain as part of regular foundry services. European IP partners, mask houses, and OSAT service providers are also being integrated to ensure a consistent value chain anchored in Europe.
GF is currently already holding discussions with various European system and module manufacturers from the aerospace and defense sectors, as well as with operators of critical infrastructure, to include future product generations within the European sovereign production program. The successful collaboration with Qualinx serves as a reference project in this regard and helps mitigate both technical and regulatory risks for future programs.
To further strengthen European sovereign production for safety-critical applications, GF is also collaborating with leading European providers of connectivity and cloud services to secure data flows across the entire semiconductor value chain. In a joint project with Deutsche Telekom, GF is currently investigating how production-related data—from design and tape-out to production, test, and quality data—can be processed, transported, and stored entirely within Europe using European networks, cloud infrastructures, and data centers. The insights from this initiative, including secure data routing, encryption, and access management for highly sensitive workloads within the aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure sectors, will contribute directly to the further development and scaling of GF’s model for European sovereign production.
Over GlobalFoundries
GlobalFoundries (GF) is a leading manufacturer of essential semiconductors that enable AI at scale, from the cloud to the physical world. Through close collaborations with customers, GF delivers distinctive, energy-efficient, and high-performance solutions for the automotive, aerospace and defense, data centers, smart mobile devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), and other fast-growing markets. With global manufacturing facilities in the US, Europe, and Asia, GF is a trusted and integrated technology partner for customers worldwide. GF’s talented international team focuses daily on safety, continuity, and sustainability. For more information, visit www.gf.com .
Over Qualinx
Qualinx is a European deep-tech semiconductor company reimagining ultra-energy-efficient connectivity for the connected edge. Its proprietary Digital Radio Frequency (DRF) technology replaces traditional analog receivers with digital hardware blocks. With this, Qualinx develops GNSS, PNT, and PVT chipsets and modules that enable secure, scalable, and reconfigurable tracking solutions for applications such as wearables, consumer electronics, automotive, fleet management, pet tracking, and asset tracking.
Qualinx was founded in 2015 and has its headquarters in Delft. The company develops a new generation of RF semiconductors designed for real-world applications and long product life cycles. Follow Qualinx on LinkedIn or visit www.qualinx.io for more information .
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