GlobalFoundries shares opened around $46.7, or 0.64% below $47 IPO price.

GlobalFoundries shares opened around $46.7, or 0.64% below $47 IPO price.

GlobalFoundries employs 3,000 people at its Fab 8 campus in Saratoga County, home to its headquarters and its most advanced chip factory.

Until now, GlobalFoundries has been privately owned by the government of Abu Dhabi through a sovereign wealth fund known as Mubadala Investment Co.

Looking to diversify its oil-focused economy, Abu Dhabi provided much of the initial investment to create GlobalFoundries more than a decade ago as a spinoff from Advanced Micro Devices into a so-called foundry that would not only make AMD's chips but also chips for other companies.

GlobalFoundries essentially took AMD's factories around the world off its hands and then built Fab 8 at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta. The facility is the company's most advanced chip factory. GlobalFoundries is planning a second one at the Fab 8 site within the next few years.

CEO Tom Caulfield, a native New Yorker, also moved the company's headquarters from Silicon Valley to Malta earlier this year, a move that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has been asking the company to do for years.

GlobalFoundries also took over the chipmaking operations of IBM as well, although that deal ended up in a recent legal battle, with IBM accusing GlobalFoundries of falling short on its promises under the agreement.

The rise of GlobalFoundries from startup to global chip foundry coincides with the consolidation of the chip industry, leaving only a few major players that still own and operate chip factories, or fabs, that can cost up to $10 billion each.

The other major manufacturers are Intel, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, all of which are substantially larger than GlobalFoundries.

However, GlobalFoundries has important Department of Defense contracts.