No, Global foundries doesnt have a viable 5nm or 3nm node yet, yeah they have suspended all 7nm operations and researching on creating the 5nm node, but it will take time. It makes more sense to buy TSMC than GloFo.
Not all chip foundry customers want or need the latest greatest nodes. We can see this in the current chip shortages, all those dozens of embedded CPUs needed in cars, and in other consumer devices aren't sub-10nm designs. The vast majority of chip manufacturing is actually at fairly pedestrian nodes for cost reasons.
I sincerely doubt the US Government would allow such an acquisition. The only way I could see it happening would be a monumental failure of communication between DoD and the FTC. DoD absolutely requires a source of chips designed and fabbed on US soil. As long as they are aware of anything going on, they'll fight tooth-and-nail to keep Intel independent.
This is such a big deal that it presents problems for vendors working on even completely open, non-sensitive systems. Like my company. We are a foreign language instruction company that serves primarily DoD. Some of our customers are being super reluctant to approve a specific project of ours because it is nearly impossible to buy appropriate hardware that is not manufactured in China. We have to settle for a hardware vendor that is not our favorite choice because at least the design company is US owned.
It's not technically correct. It should be fine to use these systems for non-sensitive purposes, but you try negotiating a contract with a CO who won't explain themselves/refuses to clarify with his own command that this is OK.
The DoD probably wouldn't even have to get the FTC involved (directly), they have enough leverage in CFIUS to stop it there due to fabs being Critical Technology.
