Chery was speaking at ST's annual analysts's day held here. The company's executives said the company was aiming at 5 to 7 percent capex to sales ratio as part of the "asset lighter" strategy the company is pursuing. It achieved 5.3 percent in 2009. However, that appears to leave no room for ST to ever lay down the several billions of dollars needed to wholly-own a new leading-edge fab.

Whatever does get taped out in a 20-nm design in 2012 is likely to be manufactured first at GlobalFoundries wafer fab in Dresden, Germany or another foundry that is also in the International Semiconductor Development Alliance (ISDA) based around IBM Microelectronics. It could even be one of the first designs to be made at a newly-opened GlobalFoundries fab in New York.

GlobalFoundries is known to be working on a 22-nm process at Dresden which will be used to start operations at the Albany fab that is underconstruction.