GlobalFoundries Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong Q2 execution: Revenue rose 6% year over year to $1.786 billion, while non-IFRS gross margin reached 29.9%, up nearly 500 basis points year over year and above guidance. Q3 revenue is expected to reach $1.885 billion at the midpoint, with gross margin advancing to approximately 30.5%.
  • Positive Sentiment: AI data-center demand accelerated: Communications infrastructure and data-center revenue increased 62% year over year in Q2, driven by silicon photonics and silicon germanium. GF raised its full-year 2026 growth outlook for the segment to 50%-60% and said SiGe capacity is oversubscribed through 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: Capacity expansion and government support are advancing photonics: GF plans to add capacity within its existing fab footprint and expects silicon photonics revenue to more than double in 2026. A planned $300 million U.S. Department of Commerce award is expected to support next-generation photonics, packaging, and near-/co-packaged optics capabilities.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Strategic investments broaden long-term opportunities: GF highlighted new engagements in quantum manufacturing, integrated voltage regulators for AI data centers, and the acquired MIPS/Synopsys ARC processor-IP businesses. These initiatives are expected to generate near-term technology-services revenue but require increased R&D spending and are largely longer-term growth bets.
  • Negative Sentiment: Mobile weakness remains a headwind: GF now expects smart-mobile-device revenue to decline by a low-teens percentage in 2026, primarily because of memory pricing and shortages. Automotive revenue also fell 13% sequentially in Q2, although management continues to expect low-double-digit growth for the full year.
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Earnings Conference Call
GlobalFoundries Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the GlobalFoundries Inc.'s second quarter fiscal year 2026 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star one one again. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. Now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Eric Chow, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Eric Chow
Eric Chow
Head of Investor Relations at GlobalFoundries Inc

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to GlobalFoundries second quarter 2026 earnings call. On the call with me today are Tim Breen, CEO, and Sam Franklin, CFO. A short while ago, we released GF's second quarter 2026 financial results, which are available on our website at investors.gf.com, along with today's accompanying slide presentation. This call is being recorded and replay will be made available on our Investor Relations webpage. During this call, we will present both IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures. The most directly comparable IFRS measures and reconciliations for non-IFRS measures are made available in today's press release and accompanying slides. Please note that these financial results are unaudited and subject to change. Certain statements on today's call may be deemed to be forward-looking statements.

Eric Chow
Eric Chow
Head of Investor Relations at GlobalFoundries Inc

Such statements can be identified by terms such as believe, expect, intend, anticipate, and may, or by the use of the future tense. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements we make today. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, please refer to the press release we issued today, as well as risks and uncertainties described in our SEC filings, including in sections under the caption Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 20-F, and in any current reports on Form 6-K furnished with the SEC. In terms of upcoming events, we will be participating in a fireside chat at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in San Francisco on September 8th.

Eric Chow
Eric Chow
Head of Investor Relations at GlobalFoundries Inc

We will begin today's call with Tim providing a summary update on the business environment and technologies, followed by Sam, who will provide details on our second quarter results and third quarter guidance. We will open the call for questions with Tim and Sam. We request that you please limit your questions to one with one follow-up. I'll now turn the call over to Tim.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Thank you, Eric, and welcome everyone to our second quarter 2026 earnings call. GF delivered strong results in the second quarter, with revenue and non-IFRS profitability metrics at or above the high-end of our guidance ranges. The team continued its rigorous execution, ramping critical technology corridors where we see accelerating customer demand and the opportunity to create and capture value. In particular, our comms infrastructure and data center end market delivered over 60% year-over-year growth in Q2, driven by continued demand for optical networking applications across our silicon photonics and silicon germanium platforms. This marked one of the fastest quarters of year-over-year revenue growth for an end-market in our company history. We believe our value proposition has never been more in demand. Our differentiated technology portfolio and resilient global manufacturing footprint continue to strengthen our position with customers.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We are seeing meaningful momentum as we execute our strategy and drive towards the long-term targets we shared at this year's Investor Day. Let me now update you on three key developments in the quarter that are accelerating our strategic path. One, quantum technology solutions. Two, optical networking and power opportunities in the AI data center, and three, IP, software, and custom silicon. Starting with quantum, a paradigm shift that will define the next chapter of high-performance computing over the coming decade and beyond. In May, we launched Quantum Technology Solutions, a new dedicated team and set of capabilities within GF that will enable the quantum industry to move from prototypes to high-volume production. Just as CPUs, GPUs, and AI ASICs define today's compute paradigm, we believe quantum processing units, or QPUs, will be an essential part of tomorrow's.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Advanced semiconductor manufacturing, built securely here in the U.S., will be essential for the scaling of this technology. Establishing the right production capability is now the critical enabler. The ability to manufacture and integrate complex quantum devices with consistency, yield, and scale. This is precisely where GF wins. Our quantum strategy is qubit agnostic, meaning our manufacturing platforms are expected to support a broad range of leading modalities, including superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, topological, and spin. Our proven platforms like FDX provide the cryogenic CMOS foundation, and we are extending our advanced packaging capabilities into the cryogenic regime to enable the 3D heterogeneous integration that these systems require. As highlighted in our recent announcements, we are working closely with eight of the world's leading quantum computing players, including partnerships with PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, and Quantum Motion as well as new endorsements from the quantum arms of large hyperscalers.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Since launching just three months ago, we have already embarked on four new customer-specific quantum engagements with accelerating commercial momentum ahead. Advancing our quantum capabilities is anchored by an expected $375 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to accelerate the research, development, and build-out of quantum manufacturing capacity in the U.S. This critical partnership with the U.S. government underscores why quantum is not only a business opportunity, but also a national priority. We are only in the early stages of the nascent quantum opportunity. Over the next one to three years, we expect to generate quantum-related revenue largely through engineering engagements with customers, reported within our technology services revenue. As customer platforms qualify and move into volume production, we expect quantum-related revenue from manufacturing services to ramp towards the end of the decade.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Ultimately, our early momentum and customer proof points in this emerging area perfectly encapsulate the outsized value GF provides: a strongly differentiated technology, deep customer partnerships, and a global secure manufacturing footprint. Let me turn to AI Data Center, where we continue to build momentum through new customer design wins and increasing engagement across the ecosystem. In the second quarter alone, we secured seven new optical networking design wins with customers across both pluggable transceiver suppliers as well as major hyperscaler and networking players. Silicon photonics and silicon germanium each play critical roles in optical networking systems, and combined with data center power, represent three high-quality, long-term secular growth drivers, which underscore our conviction in the ability to grow in the data center for years to come. I will walk through an update on each of these.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

For silicon photonics, let's start with pluggables, which contributes the vast majority of our silicon photonics revenue today. Thanks to our differentiated technology and advanced 300 mm photonics manufacturing footprint, we are actively engaged with four of the top five optical transceiver players. Given our strong capabilities and robust capacity ramp, we now expect our silicon photonics revenue, as reported within the comms infrastructure and data center end-market, to more than double in 2026 compared with the year prior. Beyond just this year, we are progressing well on our multi-year roadmap to advance the enablement of modules delivering 1.6 Tb, 3.2 Tb, and beyond. High volume manufacturing of our 200 Gb per lane technology is underway. We have already demonstrated 400 Gb capability and solutions for even greater bandwidth are in development.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

In addition to our robust pluggable offerings today, we see significant customer interest in our SCALE platform, the industry's first OCI MSA-compatible solution for near-packaged and co-packaged optics. We currently have seven active engagements with leading companies on our SCALE platform, and customer feedback on the merits of our technology and manufacturing capabilities has been very positive. We are already delivering tangible results for our customers today, having taped out a SCALE-related design win in Q2, and we expect to tape out another in Q3. Specifically for near-packaged optics, we see NPO as an important application and exciting opportunity ahead of the broader adoption of co-packaged solutions. Because near-packaged and co-packaged optics are built on a common photonic IC, and because many components of GF SCALE solution support both near-packaged and co-packaged optics, our customers benefit from the same underlying platform.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

As a result, we expect GF to benefit from the silicon photonics opportunity regardless of the rate and pace of various form factor adoptions by our customers. As we increase investments into our silicon photonics capabilities, the importance of government partnerships continues to grow. Last week, GF entered into a letter of intent with the US Department of Commerce for a $300 million award to accelerate the development of next-generation silicon photonics technologies in the U.S.. The funding will support advanced optical materials, modulated technologies, and packaging innovations that will enable next-generation near-packaged and co-packaged optics architectures, building directly on GF's SCALE platform. The endorsement from our partners across the industry has reinforced our strategic conviction, including the world's top XPU providers, hyperscalers, AI connectivity leaders, and ecosystem partners.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We are pleased to take a central role in advancing optical innovation and development in the U.S., and believe this recognition validates the strategic importance of silicon photonics, the excellent relationship we enjoy with our partners, and GF's leadership in these technologies. Another driver of data center momentum is high-performance silicon germanium, which powers the analog and mixed-signal electronics at the heart of optical interconnects for AI and cloud infrastructure. Our differentiated SiGe platform delivers the bandwidth, signal integrity, and power efficiency required for increasingly demanding optical networking applications, making it strongly complementary to our silicon photonics portfolio. During the quarter, we secured multiple new SiGe TIA and driver design wins across networking customers. Demand for SiGe remains strong, and we are oversubscribed throughout 2027. We are actively expanding capacity in our Vermont facility to support this demand. We believe SiGe represents another key growth opportunity for GF.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Combined with our leadership in silicon photonics, GF offers a uniquely differentiated set of technologies that help address the bandwidth, power efficiency, and signal integrity requirements of next-generation AI systems. The momentum we are seeing today reinforces our belief that we will be a key leader in optical networking for years to come. The third strong opportunity we see in the AI data center relates to power. In July, we closed the strategic acquihire of the custom power team from Photeon Technologies in Europe, bringing an experienced design team focused on integrated voltage regulators, or IVRs. Together with our BCD, GaN, and integrated inductor capabilities, IVR further strengthens our roadmap depth in power technologies and expands our serviceable market in one of the fastest-growing opportunities within AI data centers.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Our goal is to help enable a new power architecture for AI infrastructure, one that brings power conversion closer to the processor and addresses the increasing efficiency, power density, bandwidth, high current, and transient response requirements of next-generation XPUs. As AI workloads continue to scale, XPUs are consuming more power than ever before, increasing the need for solutions that can reduce power losses and deliver higher performance with an increasingly constrained thermal and physical footprints. Closed in Q2, this transaction brings new differentiated IVR technology, specialized engineering talent, and additional R&D capabilities that strongly complement our power portfolio, allowing us to capture a larger share of the growing power opportunity in AI data centers. Finally, moving to another key element of our long-term strategy, our IP, software, and custom silicon capabilities.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

In June, we completed our previously announced acquisition of Synopsys ARC Processor IP Solutions business, an important milestone in advancing our strategy in physical AI and a notable step change in expanding GF's serviceable addressable market. As a recap, the strategic rationale is multifold. As AI increasingly moves beyond the data center into the physical world around us, it is transforming automotive, industrial automation, robotics, and intelligent edge devices. In that context, customers are looking for partners that can help them navigate the growing complexity of software, compute architectures, and semiconductor design. Together with MIPS, this acquisition bolsters GF's capabilities across RISC-V processor IP, software development tools, and custom silicon design, enabling us to support customers from architecture and software through high-volume silicon production.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We acquired a broad set of CPU, DSP, NPU, and broader RISC-V technologies, as well as a proven software development toolkit and application-specific processor design capabilities. With over 150 patents, 300 existing customers, and 400 R&D engineers around the world, this acquisition meaningfully expands our ecosystem reach and depth. Importantly, we are already seeing significant strategic benefits from our acquisition. By combining MIPS and Synopsys ARC under one roof, we are engaging with more customers earlier in the design cycle, shaping application-specific compute architectures and creating deeper, longer-lasting customer partnerships. To accelerate customer enablement, we are increasing investment in a number of R&D initiatives. These are focused, high return programs that position us to capitalize on expanding opportunities while helping our customers innovate faster.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Over time, we believe this creates a pathway to greater custom silicon opportunities and enabling physical AI customers to run their AI inference workloads on GF- and MIPS-based processing platforms. In summary, we made meaningful progress across several strategic growth areas this quarter. We delivered a record quarter for design wins across both communications infrastructure and data center and smart mobile devices in differentiated areas such as display backplanes for AI glasses, PMICs for premium smartphones, and smart power stage gate drivers for data center power. Our differentiated capabilities are helping customers solve increasingly complex challenges while positioning GF as a trusted technology partner. We are making critical investments and integrating strategic acquisitions that strengthen our competitive position, diversify our growth drivers, and provide a durable foundation for long-term profitable growth. I am proud of the team's diligent execution this quarter and excited about the opportunities ahead.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

I'll now pass the call over to Sam for a deeper dive on second quarter 2026 financials.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Thank you, Tim. For the remainder of the call, including guidance other than revenue, cash flow, and net interest income, I will reference non-IFRS metrics. GF delivered strong results in the second quarter, with revenue and non-IFRS gross margin exceeding the high end of our guidance ranges. Thanks to the efforts from our teams around the world to improve structural costs, raise manufacturing productivity, and accelerate growth in value-accretive secular end-markets, we grew our gross margin by nearly 500 basis points year-over-year. Not only did this represent a second quarter record, we delivered on our expectation to reach approximately 30% gross margin well before the end of 2026. Driven by a richer mix of revenue, this quarter's results demonstrated a meaningful step forward towards our long-term objectives to achieve structurally higher margins and profitability. Now on to the results.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We delivered second quarter revenue of $1.786 billion, up 9% sequentially and 6% year-over-year. We shipped approximately 625,000 300 mm equivalent wafers in the quarter, up 8% sequentially and 8% from the prior year period. Revenue from manufacturing services accounted for approximately 89% of total revenue. Revenue from technology services, which includes revenue from IP, licensing, software, reticles, non-recurring engineering, expedite fees, and other items, accounted for approximately 11% of total revenue for the second quarter. Following the acquisitions of MIPS and the Synopsys ARC IP business, we expect revenue contribution of approximately $100 million-$120 million towards our full-year 2026 technology services revenue, up from our prior expectation of $60 million-$100 million as these acquisitions continue to drive new opportunities with our customers.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Driven by strong conversion of our design win pipeline and an expanding scope of partnerships with customers, we expect sustained momentum in our revenue contribution from technology services. As a result, we expect technology services revenue towards the high-end of the 10%-12% range of total revenue in 2026, with a gross margin profile significantly higher than our corporate targets. Let me now provide an update on our revenue and outlook by end-market. Communications infrastructure and data center represented approximately 16% of second quarter total revenue. Revenue increased 20% sequentially and 62% year-over-year. This marked the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit percentage year-over-year growth for communications infrastructure and data center, and the fastest quarterly year-on-year growth since 2022. Within this end-market, we saw strong customer demand for our silicon photonics and silicon germanium offerings.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

In both of these high-margin technologies, we're ramping capacity and making the necessary investments to unlock increases in demand indicated by our customers. Beyond optical networking, we saw strong double-digit year-over-year growth in applications across both wireless infrastructure and storage. Given the accelerating demand outlook from our customers, we now expect to achieve full-year 2026 revenue growth in the range of 50%-60% for our communications infrastructure and data center end-market, up from our prior expectations of high 30s percentage year-over-year growth, which we believe is an early indication of the long-term growth opportunities ahead for GF in this end-market. Beyond the growth opportunities across silicon photonics and SiGe outlined by Tim, we also closed a first of a kind design win for smart power stage gate drivers on our BCD platform.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We see this as just one notable step forward in the rapidly evolving market for data center power applications. Automotive represented approximately 19% of second quarter total revenue. Automotive revenue decreased 13% sequentially and 10% year-over-year, principally driven by customer-led shipment timings. However, for the full year, we continue to expect low double-digit percentage revenue growth for our automotive end market with a higher weighting towards the fourth quarter. As automotive semiconductor content continues to grow, we're encouraged by our design win momentum with customers and the long-term growth opportunities these present. In the second quarter, we secured a significant automotive power design win for 5 V and 10 V power management integrated circuits built on our BCD platform. We also taped out an ADAS radar built on our FDX platform for Bosch, a notable milestone and the culmination of years of close partnership.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

These highlights reflect the strong momentum we continue to see across automotive power, processing, sensing, and safety applications. Smart mobile devices represented approximately 36% of second quarter total revenue. Revenue increased 15% sequentially and decreased 6% from the prior year period. As noted by peers and customers across the industry, 2026 smart mobile handset forecasts have reduced meaningfully over the last quarter, principally due to the continued impact from memory pricing and associated shortages. As a result, we currently expect smart mobile devices to decline by a low teens percentage year-over-year in 2026. Customer design win momentum for new generations of smart mobile devices continues to be positive. In the second quarter, we secured a notable design win on GF's BCD platform with MediaTek, further validating our expanding power platform. This marked GF's first ever power management integrated circuit design win with our long-standing customer.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We continued to strengthen our position with next-generation augmented reality wearables at a leading hyperscaler, winning a new design for microLED display backplanes. Home and industrial IoT represented approximately 19% of second quarter total revenue. Revenue increased 30% sequentially and 10% year-over-year. In the second quarter, IoT revenue growth marked the fastest year-over-year growth since 2022, driven by a breadth of demand for applications across AI-enabled image processing, healthcare wearables, and next-generation MCUs for edge AI compute. As inventory normalizes, customer demand signals improve, and the next-generation of production ramps commence in the second half of the year, we expect our revenue for the home and industrial IoT end-market to grow in the range of 10%-15% in 2026, up notably from our prior expectations for mid-single-digit percentage growth.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

In the second quarter, we secured three strategic chiplet design wins with Lockheed Martin on our FinFET and FDX platforms, creating a foundational aerospace and defense chiplet ecosystem that further extends GF leadership as a trusted U.S. foundry. We expanded our relationship with Microchip with a meaningful design win on our FinFET platform, another notable proof point for the growth of our embedded compute and edge AI offerings. Moving now to other key financial performance metrics in the quarter. In the second quarter, we delivered gross profit of $534 million, which translates into approximately 29.9% gross margin, above the high end of the guidance range and up 470 basis points year-over-year. A richer mix of manufacturing and technology services revenue, structural improvements in manufacturing costs, and improved utilization all contributed to favorable year-over-year margin expansion. R&D for the quarter was $144 million, and SG&A was $92 million.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Total operating expenses of $236 million were up 16% quarter-over-quarter and represented approximately 13% of total revenue. We delivered operating profit of $298 million for the quarter at an operating margin of 16.7%, above the midpoint of our guided range and up 140 basis points from the prior year period. Second quarter net interest income was $9 million. Other expense was $12 million, and we incurred tax expense of $39 million in the quarter. We delivered second quarter net income of approximately $256 million, an increase of approximately $22 million from the prior year period. Diluted earnings of $0.46 per share was at the high-end of the guidance range based on a fully diluted share count of approximately 556 million shares. Let me now provide some key cash flow and balance sheet metrics. Cash flow from operations in the second quarter was $405 million.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Second quarter CapEx, net of proceeds from government grants, was $408 million, or roughly 23% of revenue. Adjusted free cash flow for the quarter was -$3 million, as indicated in our prior quarter's guidance. At the end of the second quarter, our combined total of cash equivalents, and marketable securities stood at approximately $3.3 billion. Our total debt was $1.1 billion, and we also have a $1 billion revolving credit facility, which remains undrawn. On July 14th, we paid GF's first-ever quarterly cash dividend of $0.12 per share, an important milestone that reflects both the progress we have made in strengthening the business and our confidence in its future cash-generating capacity. Supported by a strong balance sheet and disciplined capital allocation framework, we remain committed to investing in profitable growth while returning excess cash to shareholders.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

As outlined at our Investor Day, our objective is to return up to 50% of trailing 12 months non-IFRS adjusted free cash flow after investments through a combination of dividends and share repurchases over time. Pursuant to this strategic objective, I'm pleased to announce that our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.12 per share, payable on October 9th, 2026, to shareholders of record as of September 23rd, 2026. In addition, approximately $100 million remains under the share repurchase authorization approved by our board of directors, and we expect to be flexible with the deployment of the remaining authorized amount. Next, let me provide you with our outlook for the third quarter of 2026. We expect total GF revenue to be $1.885 billion, ±$25 million.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We expect gross margin to be approximately 30.5%, ±100 basis points, which at the midpoint reflects approximately 450 basis points of year-over-year expansion. Excluding share-based compensation, we expect total operating expenses to be $260 million, ±$10 million. We expect operating margin in the range of 16.7%, ±170 basis points. At the midpoint of our guidance, we expect share-based compensation to be approximately $76 million, of which roughly $18 million is related to cost of goods sold. We expect net interest and other income for the quarter to be between $3 million and $11 million, and income tax expense to be between $28 million and $52 million. Based on a fully diluted share count of approximately 556 million shares, we expect diluted earnings per share for the third quarter to be $0.51, ±$0.05.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Let me provide an update on some broader financial drivers as we evolve the mix of our business and aim to deliver the growth model set out at our recent Investor Day. With respect to pricing, we're encouraged by the improving industry dynamics as well as the evolving mix of our business towards highly accretive technologies. In addition to these positive mix shifts, in the second quarter, we implemented pricing increases in partnership with our customers across several technology corridors. Following the satisfactory conclusion of these customer conversations, we expect the pricing adjustments to be reflected in revenue commencing in 2027. The magnitude of these pricing increases varies by end market and technology and contemplates the differentiated value we provide, the ongoing supply and demand dynamics, and the inflationary absorption across our industry in recent years.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Conversations with our customers have been very constructive. We'll continue to assess pricing for 2027 through the second half of 2026. With respect to operating expenses, consistent with the strategic updates we set out at our Investor Day in May, we believe that R&D will rise as a percentage of revenue as we integrate recent acquisitions and accelerate our R&D capabilities to support key growth opportunities. We've strengthened our portfolio capabilities through the acquisitions of the Synopsys ARC IP business in June, as well as the IVR business from Photeon Technologies in early July, adding critical R&D, IP, and engineering resources.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Following these acquisitions, we now expect quarterly operating expenses in the second half of 2026 to be consistent with our third quarter guidance as we accelerate critical R&D investments while ramping talent and capabilities intended to support key growth opportunities across the AI data center, physical AI, quantum computing, and advanced packaging. These timely and necessary investments are targeted to accelerate our technology roadmap, deepen our customer engagements, and expand future growth opportunities in the years ahead. Moving now to tax, where we expect an effective tax rate in the mid-teens percentage range for the full-year of 2026, principally due to the expected geographical mix of wafers shipped in the second half of this year. Finally, for the full-year 2026, we continue to expect an adjusted free cash flow margin of approximately 10%.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

In conclusion, I'd like to thank our global teams for their continued commitment and diligent execution towards our strategic goals. GF drove another quarter of meaningful year-over-year margin expansion and achieved new second quarter records across a range of growth and profitability metrics. Our strategic initiatives and investments executed over the last year are demonstrating good momentum across the end-markets that we serve. The continued mix shift in our business is driving improved diversification across our end-market portfolio. Looking ahead, we intend to continue executing towards a richer mix of business, targeting continued structural cost improvements and improved manufacturing productivity, all of which we believe are forming a strong foundation for increasing shareholder value in the years ahead. With that, let's open the call to Q&A. Operator?

Operator

Certainly. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Caso from Wolfe Research. Your question please.

Chris Caso
Chris Caso
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Yes, thank you. Good morning. I guess the first question is about the common data center growth and some of the capacity expansion that's occurring in that segment. I know, while it's growing strongly, you're capacity constrained. Can you help us with, the extent you can, timing and magnitude of that capacity expansion? When does additional capacity come online? I did also notice that you received, I think it was the $300 million CHIPS Act grant for the silicon photonics expansion. Can you speak to how that helps to defray some of the net CapEx for that?

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah. Thank you, Chris. I'll kick us off on that. In terms of capacity, as you say, demand has been strengthening across basically all data center applications. We're feeling that very strongly in the optical networking space that particularly pulls on silicon photonics and silicon germanium. We're also seeing it in other parts of the business starting to pick up, including areas like power. Our strategy will be to add capacity in those areas. One advantage for us is we're building that capacity out within our existing fab footprint, and we have, let's say, ample fab footprint today, to ramp capacity relatively quickly.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

By the way, one of the contributors to us upping our full year view about our CID end-market is actually our confidence about bringing that capacity on and driving factory level productivity improvements, to be able to get basically wafers out through the back half of this year and even further into 2027. We feel good about the ability to meet that growth with additional capacity expansion. Maybe I'll turn to the $300 million partnership with the US government. We couldn't be more excited about this. I think it's really important to bear in mind that the shift to optical networking is very much a secular shift, and we see this only at the very early innings of penetrating the data center. We've spoken in the past about 70% of data center links being optical by 2030.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

I think every piece of evidence today points to that being perhaps even conservative relative to what's happening, including the penetration, not just to scale out, but also scale up networking. Look, we're very excited about the prospects of optical networking, and within that, silicon photonics. A lot of what that will require is higher performance technologies in the future. What we announced really has three components. Continuous innovation at the PIC level, right? Improved modulator technology, so we can go to 400 Gb per lane and beyond. New materials. At some point, we will introduce new materials into the system. Think about barium titanate, thin film, lithium niobate, think about indium phosphide, all areas of technological innovation to produce higher performing systems and more integrated systems going forward.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

The last piece, which is extraordinarily important, particularly for near and co-package optics, is packaging. Being able to build those integrated optical engines for both those applications using our SCALE solution also requires continued capability and capacity. That partnership allows us to accelerate that, and we are very grateful to have the US government as a strong partner in our corner, supporting that innovation happen right here in the U.S..

Operator

A follow-up?

Chris Caso
Chris Caso
Analyst at Wolfe Research

I do. Thanks. A follow-up I will ask on gross margins. Can you speak to what's the driver of the gross margin expansion as you go into the third quarter in terms of utilization mix and pricing, and perhaps give us some color on the trajectory of gross margins into next year, particularly in light of some of your comments with regard to pricing.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Very happy to, Chris. Look, I will start by saying that we are very encouraged by the continued progression and expansion in our gross margins. I think it's a continued reflection of the progress that we have seen during the course of this year. We had almost 500 basis points of margin expansion in the second quarter. We had over 500 basis points of margin expansion in the first quarter. As I said in my prepared remarks, if you take the midpoint of our inferred guide, that implies about another 450 basis points of margin expansion. This is really playing to the thesis and the levers that we discussed at our Investor Day just a couple of months ago now. Frankly, it's falling through on a relatively healthy basis when you look at the revenue.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Take revenue a year ago and compare it to the same period this year, about $100 million of revenue growth. Look at that adjusted gross profit and you see about $100 million of gross profit falling through as well. We're very encouraged by that relative fall-through to the underlying gross margins as it relates to our revenue growth. You sort of touched on it a little bit in your question, Chris. Mix has been a big and continues to be a big driver of that. The way to think about mix is twofold. It's mix from a manufacturing services point of view, and it's mix from a technology services point of view as well.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Both of those have been encouraging tailwinds for us, particularly when you look at the relative strength and growth within some of those end markets, which I touched on around comms, infra, and data center being highly accretive to those targets. You take our technology services revenue up a little under $40 million year-over-year, that's about a point of benefit that comes through there. The combination of the mix across manufacturing and technology services has been encouraging. We expect that to continue. As I said previously, productivity within our manufacturing sites and driving structural cost improvements has been a big driver as well. Utilization, we were in the second quarter, sort of high 80s from a utilization point of view. We still feel we've got a good amount of our existing capacity to be able to grow into and see positive margin movements over time.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Frankly, all of that is against some of the benefits we had in the year ago period. We had things like liquidated damages in early 2025, which have fallen out. Again, it sort of reflects the strong growth we've seen from a margin point of view. We bumped up on that 30% target margin that we said we were looking to solve for at the exit of 2026 in our second quarter. We're above that in the third quarter guidance. Expectation now for the full-year is that we should be at about 30 points of gross margin for the full-year rather than just that exit target that we had at the beginning of the year. Hope that helps, Chris.

Chris Caso
Chris Caso
Analyst at Wolfe Research

It does. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Krish Sankar from TD Cowen. Your question, please.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Analyst at TD Cowen

Yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my question, congrats on the nice results. I just wanted to first follow up on the silicon photonics CID year-over-year growth almost doubling from your prior outlook. I'm just kind of curious what changed in the last three months that the outlook has been revised almost materially higher? Any color you can give on your PIC solutions compared to your two competing foundries? I had a quick follow-up on Quantum too.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah, great. Thank you very much, Krish. Look, Photonics remains a very strong driver for us. I think every customer meeting is all about what more can we do, how much faster can we go. There is clearly strong demand today. By the way, in a market like this, we don't just validate that demand with our direct customers. We spend time throughout the ecosystem, including with the big hyperscalers. You've seen many of them are supporting a lot of what we're doing here in the U.S. and around the world. We're validating the demand, and we believe it's very real today and durable going forward. That's giving us confidence to continue to invest. We'll increase our investments in Photonics capacity. As I mentioned earlier, there's nothing our factories love more than being challenged to get more output literally every single week.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We're calling in from Malta, New York right now, the factory is hard at work producing more wafers every day for these oversold corridors. I think very strong conviction about continuing to grow silicon photonics, yet we're still at the very beginning of this and that those growth targets we set for end of 2028 and through 2030, I'd say today we are very much on track and potentially ahead of those targets in terms of our silicon photonics growth.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Analyst at TD Cowen

Got it. Very helpful, Tim. A quick follow-up on quantum. You recently got a $375 million grant. Can you talk a little bit about the opportunity set there and where are we in the quantum commercialization curve? Have you seen more interest or share gains given IonQ just recently closed acquisition of SkyWater? Thank you.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Thank you for that question. I mean, quantum is extremely exciting and there's a few reasons behind that. I think one is talking to now basically all the players in the sector. Everyone is facing the same kind of transition. This is not a can I prove it in a lab discussion, this is can I scale to high volume manufacturing? The conversations we have and in our announcement we had both

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Dedicated quantum players, also hyperscalers and others comment and support that initiative. That the conversations are similar because all about transitioning to that high volume scale and cracking different problems that they've proven at lab scale but need to prove now as they transition to high volume. Since that announcement, we've launched four significant new engagements with a subset of the players that are supporting us in that announcement, and we see that ramp continuing. Those engagements have some common features. For example, some of the stuff we're doing around cryogenic CMOS for readout, ICs for different modalities. That's very exciting because it builds on existing platforms that we have. Also there are those who have very specific requirements, and that's where also I'm quite excited about the technology benefits of us investing in quantum. I'll give you an example.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

A couple of, actually more than two, probably three or four players are doing things linked to the photonic side in their quantum solution. That has excellent read-across for us in our long-term silicon photonics roadmap. Think of that as very synergetic with what we're doing in that space. Quantum is actually reinvigorating a number of our long-term technology roadmaps even farther and faster than otherwise it would be happening. That's very positive. As Sam mentioned in the prepared remarks, we'll see the financial profile of quantum in our technology services revenue this year and definitely into next year. Think of it more medium-term as a kind of call option on the scale to high-volume module manufacturing.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Too early to call exactly when those ramps will happen, but clearly that is the objective of these players that are engaging with us, is develop and crack the solutions and then scale them to high volume together.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Analyst at TD Cowen

[inaudible], very helpful.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Karl Ackerman from BNP Paribas. Your question, please.

Karl Ackerman
Karl Ackerman
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Yes, good morning, Tim and Sam. Thank you for having me on the call. Two, if I may. Tim, you spoke about the three pillars of growth, including photonics, quantum, IP, and custom silicon. Could you speak to the revenue and OpEx contribution of the ARC and Photeon Technologies IVR team in the September outlook? Also, if you zoom out, could you double-click on the rationale for these deals and maybe any early customer design engagements you've seen to date?

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah. I will talk about rationale, and then I will let Sam comment on how we are thinking about revenue for this year. We have been very focused in our acquisition strategy on identifying capabilities that our customers value and that links to our manufacturing roadmap, but also links to what they tell us around gaps that the industry today is not meeting. Let me take kind of the MIPS and Synopsys story first, then I will come back to Photeon, both very exciting in their own ways. Customer feedback on MIPS and then ARC has been excellent. I spend a lot of time personally with customers, especially since we have closed the ARC deal. By the way, with that came 300 customers. Some of those were not GF customers before, it gives us also new customers to engage with on those roadmaps.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

These are very strategic discussions because these are about future architectures for their processor solutions. How can they add AI at the edge? How can they do on-device inference in the automotive space, the industrial space, the robotic space? It is bringing some really interesting discussions to bear, and it allows us as GF to engage much earlier in that design conversation than we would if it was just a conversation about manufacturing capacity and manufacturing process technology. It has another benefit, which is that it is also giving us very early input into our manufacturing roadmap, now you have this, let us say, symbiosis internally that we have an internal customer for what we are doing that is actually challenging us to push performance of next generation technologies, particularly in our CMOS business, to the next level.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

You are thinking about how do you do lower power inference at the edge and so on. I would say early, of course, for both of these, but very encouraging. We have talked about some of the early wins and partnerships in spaces like defense with Lockheed Martin, automotive with players like Infineon, there are many more in the pipeline. Very encouraging for our IP software and custom silicon strategy. To talk briefly about IVR and Photeon, we have had the chance to work with the Photeon team for many years now as the IVR category has started to become more and more important. The way you should think about that is IVR is to power what CPO is to photonics, right?

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Think about how do you build a much more wafer-level integrated solution to deliver power closer to the chip, to be able to do things that today exist in much more kind of traditional power modules, much more like the industrial and automotive power modules of today. This is moving to a much more kind of, let us say, wafer-level solution that is higher and higher performance. That is essential for next-generation data center power, given how hungry these XPUs, TPUs, CPUs are all for power. Photeon team, very engaged with a number of our existing customers, it is a very natural transition to bring that team on board, accelerate those engagements. Again, early feedback from the likes of existing kind of fabless and IDMs, also hyperscalers who are engaged there, very positive bringing that capability into GF.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Karl, maybe if I just jump on the second part of your question as it relates to some of the financial profile and for all the reasons that Tim outlined, these investments are incremental, they're strategic, and actually in the case of the MIPS acquisition as well as the ARC IP business from Synopsys, they are revenue generative from day one. At the outset of this year, we expected that we'd be seeing about $60 million-$100 million of incremental revenue through from that MIPS acquisition during the course of 2026. That remains the expectation, but what's changed over the course of the last quarter is that we closed the acquisition of the Synopsys ARC IP business.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

The midpoint of that range, as you can kind of infer from my prepared remarks, has moved up from the $60 million-$100 million to $100 million-$120 million, call it $30 million of revenue growth. Our expectation in terms of the skew of that incremental revenue from that recent acquisition is 1/3, 2/3 skewed from third quarter and fourth quarter perspective. As it relates to the R&D and the fall-through, ultimately through to EPS. Look, these are R&D intensive businesses. They're also highly accretive from a gross margin point of view. Overall, we expect that the increase in OpEx and particularly the acceleration from an R&D point of view, to largely be covered by that incremental revenue we see coming through from both of those acquisitions. We feel quite good about it from that perspective.

Karl Ackerman
Karl Ackerman
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Very clear. For my follow-up, if I may, could you discuss what portion of those seven customers on your SCALE platform are working on NPO or near package optics? I guess how should we think about the timing of your NPO opportunity? Thank you.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Maybe just to take a step back, I think there's obviously, a year ago, the industry wasn't talking a lot about NPO, now it's talking a lot about it. I think the reason is that you see a comfort level for a number of players moving from, let's say, traditional pluggable infrastructure to NPO, and that's because they have synergies in terms of things like the SerDes. The system is, let's say a smaller transition versus moving to the full co-package optics. We think both those form factors as well as pluggables will continue to exist in the data center. Obviously, as you get more into scale up networking, that's where you need to move to smaller form factors like NPO and CPO and to really address all of those linkages within a scale-up network. We think all of those will continue to exist.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

SCALE supports NPO and CPO. A lot of the dimensions that go into putting a SCALE solution together, an EIC bonded to a PIC with a micro-optic, with a fiber attached unit, are necessary for both NPO and for CPO. Fundamentally, the mechanical difference is that the NPO is bonded to the board, whereas the CPO sits within the package, right? There are differences therefore to, let's say, more the things like the SerDes architecture, as I mentioned, but less to the mechanics of how things are done. Look, we see very good momentum on NPO. I'd say the SCALE engagements we have cut across both, and actually I'd say even many of the customers are doing both because they have both an NPO that they're ramping sooner and a CPO that they're ramping a little bit later.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

We still maintain the view that 2027 will see the beginning of NPO ramp and 2028 will see the beginning of CPO ramp, that's been quite consistent over the last few quarters.

Karl Ackerman
Karl Ackerman
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line, Mehdi Hosseini from Susquehanna International Group. Your question please.

Mehdi Hosseini
Analyst at Susquehanna International Group

Yes, thanks for taking my question. I also have a couple of follow-ups on comm infrastructure. Tim, can you help me understand what is the contribution of SiGe into your overall optical revenue mix? As we migrate to NPO, I'm assuming the PIC itself becomes a catalyst. To what extent should I expect some synergy between SiPho and SiGe? I do have a follow-up.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah, it's a great question. Let me talk about SiGe just for a little bit since you picked it out. Just to wind the clock back, how do we have such an important position in SiGe? IBM Microelectronics, I think, is on record for inventing SiGe. IBM Microelectronics is part of GF today, we've had team members building SiGe solutions for a long time now. That's always been an important part of our portfolio. What you're seeing in SiGe is that the acceleration is driven by, let's say, two trends happening at the same time. One is the shift to optical networking means you are moving more data through a different kind of link.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

As you push to higher and higher bandwidth, what you could do previously in CMOS at, say, 50 Gb per lane, 100 Gb per lane, at 200 Gb per lane, definitely at 400 Gb per lane, you cannot do. What we're seeing is people are breaking out those TIAs, those transimpedance amplifiers, incrementally also breaking out the drivers and doing them in high performance analog solutions like SiGe. In a way, what we're seeing in our SiGe business is actually growth driven by both the switch to optical, but also the increased bandwidth requirements within those optical solutions. That's driving significant growth within the space. Just to give you a dimension, our SiGe business is actually larger than our silicon photonic business today. It's actually a meaningful part of our data center business overall.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Like silicon photonics, has very strong growth trajectories because it serves the same underlying trend. Perhaps with even that multiplier effect playing out even more so as we're expanding the performance of those pluggable technologies. You'll also find high performance analog solutions in near and co-package optics as well. Those will also have components for those, depending on the architecture. Our SiGe solutions, we build them today in Burlington, Vermont. We're expanding capacity there. That's part of what is also increasing our output within 2026 and definitely into 2027. We're also qualifying 300 mm SiGe in Singapore, which will bring additional capacity, the economics of 300 mm, which obviously is very good, but also higher performance. As you move to new platforms, you improve your Ft, your Fmax performance.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

And so we think we can continue that great tradition started by IBM of leading the industry in terms of our SiGe solutions for the market.

Mehdi Hosseini
Analyst at Susquehanna International Group

Okay, great. I feel like we could spend an hour just focusing on optical, but I'm going to move on. Within the comm infrastructure, there's also satellite comm, and SpaceX had their first quarterly call last night. So help us understand, right now we're just focused on a transceiver and optical solution, but I see there's also a synergy. So what kind of a substrate is used for satellite comm? And remind us from Analyst Day how satellite comm could also drive double-digit growth here. Hopefully, I'm in line with my assumptions.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah. SatCom, look, continues to be a strong growth business for us, and the reasons for that, I think, are fairly clear. The transition to LEO deployment, really driven by SpaceX originally and a couple of other players now ramping as well. It's very clear to see, and as a consumer, once you take a flight and use Starlink on the flight, you kind of don't want to go back to how it used to be. So I think it's clear why those solutions are taking effect. Remember, you're beaming a signal 300 mi into space, a signal that normally would have gone 2 mi or 3 mi to a base station or a cell tower. And so you need higher performance RF, you need beamforming, you need other kind of wireless technologies. These are very core strength areas for GF. Some of those technologies are in SOI today.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Some of them have SOI-like characteristics but are done without SOI as well. we're seeing more and more trajectory of new RF technologies playing into SatCom going forward. Even areas like RF GaN, we think will play a very important role in SatCom going forward, because you're not just increasing the number of units deployed, but you're talking about faster and faster bandwidth. by the way, this is not just for consumers. You're hearing about industrial deployment, corporate deployment, and so on. dare I say, when you put data centers in space, you're going to need a lot more bandwidth to bring that capability back to Earth for people to use. I think very strong secular driver of growth for us.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Obviously, we're starting from a relatively small base compared to other markets, given this is relatively new, but we definitely see it growing very well long term.

Mehdi Hosseini
Analyst at Susquehanna International Group

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line, Timothy Arcuri from UBS. Your question, please.

Timothy Arcuri
Timothy Arcuri
Analyst at UBS

Thanks a lot. Sam, I had a multipart question. The segment guidance implies December is up sort of in the 10% range. My question is, A, is that right? Then, can you give us any sense for September of how the guidance shakes out by segment, even if you just give qualitative comments on that?

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah, happy to, Tim, and you're right in terms of your overall inference. We said that for the remaining part of this year, just given some of the dynamics around mobile, we think that's sort of download teens for the full-year. Meanwhile, automotive, despite having a slight softer in 2Q, that was really a function of some of their customer shipment timings. Our expectation is that comes back in the second half. Sort of low-double-digit growth on auto is very consistent with what we've been guiding throughout this year. IoT has actually been an interesting update from our perspective. what we're seeing is that where there has been some softness in smart mobile, some of those customers within mobile have actually reallocated their demand into IoT. A lot of commonality between some of those connectivity applications that you see between the two.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

That's what's driving the pickup in IoT to sort of the 10% to 15% level that I indicated year-over-year. Then obviously we spent quite a bit of time on content for in data center, so I won't reiterate that, but that's really the change quarter-on-quarter, that movement to kind of 50% to 60% year-over-year growth. you can sort of infer from that, Tim, what that means for third quarter into fourth quarter. I think your math is about right in terms of that implied pickup into the fourth quarter. then, look, as it relates to some of the dynamics within 3Q and 4Q, it's largely consistent with, I think, what we're expecting to see from a trend perspective and what I just outlined on the end market split as well.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

maybe Tim, if I can just add—

Timothy Arcuri
Timothy Arcuri
Analyst at UBS

Okay

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

if we zoom out for a second and think about are we seeing more and more traction in those end markets, I think we haven't spoken a lot about design wins across the board, but we continue to see record design win momentum entering into 2026 versus 2025. again, that traction remains really strong. I think the other thing that's very important, we've worked very hard to make our manufacturing footprint as flexible as possible because there are always going to be perturbations between different end markets in terms of timing. You see, obviously, a very strong story in the data center. You see mobile is obviously going in a different direction given the memory shortage. We've been able to reuse capacity very well this year to enable us to capture some of those upsides, given the flexibility of our manufacturing footprint.

Timothy Arcuri
Timothy Arcuri
Analyst at UBS

Great, thanks. then just as a quick follow-up, so on SiPho, we do hear about some competitors are getting aggressive in going after that business as well, and the customer base is fairly concentrated. how to think about that? Can customers multi-source across different suppliers? How feasible is that? Thanks.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah, I think, look, the fact that there's competition is a sign that there's strong support for this secular trend, and I think that's not a bad thing from our point of view. What I can say is customers are also coming to us and saying, I don't have enough secured. I need to secure more, and how can I help? Some of that is also mitigating geopolitical risk that they see as well. Look, our strategy in any platform is try to work as broadly as we can across the industry so that we're not betting on the success of player A over player B, but we're mitigated if different people win different sockets.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Actually, we have more than 40 customers today in SiPho, and that of course includes some early-stage companies, but some of those early-stage companies are really doing great things in terms of ramping new solutions. I don't think we have a customer concentration concern at this stage, and you're going to see even new entrants. Look at all of the, let's say, I would say smaller fabless companies that historically were saying copper will last for a long time. All of them, to a T, have done a photonics strategy, made a photonics acquisition, and are entering into that space quite aggressively. I don't think we have a customer concentration concern, and I just think we have durable demand. like I mentioned earlier, our conversations with the hyperscalers are very helpful to vet what they see kind of as an end consumer of those applications.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

And again, that reinforces the durability of the demand.

Timothy Arcuri
Timothy Arcuri
Analyst at UBS

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of CJ Muse from Cantor Fitzgerald. Your question, please.

CJ Muse
CJ Muse
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Yeah, good morning. Thank you for squeezing me in. I guess first question on CID. Implicit in your guide is roughly an exit rate of $350 million for this segment. Curious, based on what you see today in terms of design wins, how do you see the growth into calendar 2027? I know you don't want to give specific guidance, but should we be thinking about very strong growth off of that kind of new level, or is there kind of a digested period?

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Happy to take that, CJ, and look, I think you're kind of getting to the right rough thumb numbers going out of this year. The commentary that we provided as part of our investor day and analyst day a couple of months ago still stands as we see the opportunities for comms and for data center. Obviously, it's expected to come in stronger during 2026, but there was a good reason we indicated that 30+% year-over-year growth that we're targeting through our long-term model. The plus is sort of ties into what Tim said earlier around some of the growth that we're seeing in demand, the increases that we're making to support that demand into our capacity, and just the continued ramp in customer expansion as well.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

look, I would still stand by our long-term model that we shared a couple of months back, in terms of that 30+ point percentage growth going into 2027 and beyond.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

CJ, maybe if I could add—

CJ Muse
CJ Muse
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Very helpful.

Tim Breen
Tim Breen
CEO at GlobalFoundries Inc

demand is clearly very strong, and so the question is more about the rate and pace of manufacturing productivity and capacity expansion. That's obviously a conversation we continue to have with customers. One of the advantages for us is that we can meaningfully inflect our capacity within our existing fab footprint. We don't need to build other fabs, and some of our other players in the industry are building other fabs, which obviously is a longer lead time to bring that capacity online. We're bringing within our four walls. just to give you a sense, if we think of our long-term plan, just take for photonics, we could 10x our photonics capacity within our current four walls plan on a global basis. we have a lot of flexibility about when we do that based on the demand and the partnerships we have with customers.

CJ Muse
CJ Muse
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Very helpful. Then follow up on gross margins. It sounds like the story here, in calendar 2026 is really all about mix. Curious, given your commentary around selective price increases and how you're going to continue to look at that into calendar 2027, how are you thinking about the prioritization of drivers between kind of mix pricing and utilization? Is there a framework for us to think about incremental gross margins from here?

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Yeah. Look, maybe I'll start with the mix point, CJ, because it remains the single biggest driver. In actual fact, we're still at some of the early innings of those mix shifts that we talked about from a capacity point of view. Clearly, the demand has been pulling through well during the course of 2026. When you think about the CapEx that we indicated for this year, that sort of 15%-20% range, my expectation is that we'll be up to the higher-end of that range. One of the single biggest drivers is to support incremental investments into capacity to meet that growing demand. Now, as you'd expect, the time lag between when you incur those CapEx dollars to when you install a tool, qualify it, ramp it, there's a lag to be able to then support that demand.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

My point being is that mix will continue to be a significant driver as we outlook within the model over the course of the next couple of years. Really the two to three other factors I'd point to, one, yes, utilization, but somewhat impacted. If you think about where things are at from a cycle point of view, we've still got about 10 points of utilization to be able to grow into just with our in-store capacity today. That's one dynamic, and then the other is really around continued improvements from a cost and a productivity point of view. We have been focusing maniacally on our structural cost improvements. We've seen that come through in terms of our relative cash cost per mask layer. It's an area of continued focus for the teams as well.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Really across that range of metrics is where we see the opportunity to continue expanding margin and get towards that 40% exit run rate that we indicated in the 2028 timeframe. Beyond that, to Tim's earlier comments, is where we expect to see continued ramps in custom silicon and activities under our IP software custom silicon business, as well as the increased ramp from co-packaged optics and the broader silicon photonics offerings as well. That's how we think about it over the next couple of years around some of those margin ramp drivers.

CJ Muse
CJ Muse
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Thank you.

Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
CFO at GlobalFoundries Inc

Thanks, CJ.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude the question-and-answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Eric Chow for any further remarks.

Eric Chow
Eric Chow
Head of Investor Relations at GlobalFoundries Inc

Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you everyone for joining today. We're very glad to see you, and we will see you at the Goldman Sachs conference on September 8th. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.

Executives
    • Eric Chow
      Eric Chow
      Head of Investor Relations
    • Tim Breen
      Tim Breen
      CEO
    • Sam Franklin
      Sam Franklin
      CFO
Analysts
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