GloFo has historically been unprofitable and their investors were unhappy with the idea that, just as they had finally reached profitability, they now needed to either
A) spend tens of billions of dollars on a new fab facility
B) shut down production in one of the existing facilities while spending billions of dollars to upgrade it to 7nm
While not having the volume to be able to court the largest customers who are the most interested in 7nm.
They decided to stick with their existing 14nm infrastructure and specialize in the long tail of smaller customers who want custom chips and don't need a leading-edge node.
A) spend tens of billions of dollars on a new fab facility B) shut down production in one of the existing facilities while spending billions of dollars to upgrade it to 7nm
While not having the volume to be able to court the largest customers who are the most interested in 7nm.
They decided to stick with their existing 14nm infrastructure and specialize in the long tail of smaller customers who want custom chips and don't need a leading-edge node.