According to a top official of GlobalFoundries, the increase will put the company’s capital expenditure at about the same size as its pro forma revenue for 2009 – the year of the company’s formation as a merger of the manufacturing capabilities of Advanced Micro Devices Incorporated, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the United States, and the Singapore-based foundry Chartered Semiconductor.

The increase in the 300-mm wafer manufacturing capacity also will place GlobalFoundries close to its competitor, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, in terms of capex for 2010 and in the fourth place for the whole of the semiconductor industry.

The top 3 in semiconductor capital spending in 2010 will be by Samsung at $6 billion, Intel at $5.3 billion, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company at $3 billion, according to a recent ranking from IC Insights Incorporated, base in (Scottsdale, Arizona, the United States.

GlobalFoundries has two 300-mm wafer fabs and five 200-mm wafer fabs. The company’s most advanced fab is Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany, inherited from AMD, which at present has a manufacturing capacity of around 30,000 wafer starts a month.