Tuesday, August 28th 2018
AMD Chip Manufacturing to Lay Solely With TSMC On, After 7 nm - And Why It's not a Decision, but a Necessity
It's been a tumultuous few days for AMD, as the company has seen Jim Anderson, Computing and Graphics Group leader after the departure of Raja Koduri, leave the company, at a time of soaring share value for the company (hitting $25.26 and leaving short positions well, short, by $2.67 billion.) However, there's one particular piece of news that is most relevant for the company: Globalfoundries' announcement to stop all ongoing development on the 7 nm node.
This is particularly important for a variety of reasons. The most important one is this: Globalfoundries' inability to execute on the 7 nm node leaves AMD fully free to procure chips and technology from competing foundries. If you remember, AMD's spin-off of GlobalFoundries left the former with the short end of the stick, having to cater to GlobalFoundries' special pricing, and paying for the privilege of accessing other foundries' inventories. Of course, the Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) that is in place will have to be amended - again - but the fact is this: AMD wants 7 nm products, and GlobalFoundries can't provide.
To the forumites: this piece is marked as an editorial
AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster wrote thus in a blog post:
As great as that part of the deal is for AMD, there's an obvious drawback of yet another foundry being left in the dust of new node developments: the weight of the world's semiconductor manufacturing capability on the 7 nm node - and AMD's efforts in it - stand solely on the shoulders of one player. And that's not even looking into actual output for TSMC's 7 nm node, how many customers will want to manufacture their chips on it, and whether or not TSMC has the ability to satisfy demand from all players.
Should anything befall TSMC, should the silicon giant trip, AMD will have all of its product portfolio endangered. Consumer and professional GPU and CPU products will all be manufactured under TSMC's 7 nm process, as AMD has stated time and again - and in quite an aggressive manner. Here's hoping other players step up to the 7 nm manufacturing task, or, that being as hard as it is, that nothing affects TSMC's ability to deliver, lest one giant brings down others with it.
Sources:
AMD Blogs, via TechSpot
This is particularly important for a variety of reasons. The most important one is this: Globalfoundries' inability to execute on the 7 nm node leaves AMD fully free to procure chips and technology from competing foundries. If you remember, AMD's spin-off of GlobalFoundries left the former with the short end of the stick, having to cater to GlobalFoundries' special pricing, and paying for the privilege of accessing other foundries' inventories. Of course, the Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) that is in place will have to be amended - again - but the fact is this: AMD wants 7 nm products, and GlobalFoundries can't provide.
AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster wrote thus in a blog post:
AMD's next major milestone is the introduction of our upcoming 7nm product portfolio, including the initial products with our second generation "Zen 2" CPU core and our new "Navi" GPU architecture. We have already taped out multiple 7nm products at TSMC, including our first 7nm GPU planned to launch later this year and our first 7nm server CPU that we plan to launch in 2019. Our work with TSMC on their 7nm node has gone very well and we have seen excellent results from early silicon. To streamline our development and align our investments closely with each of our foundry partner's investments, today we are announcing we intend to focus the breadth of our 7nm product portfolio on TSMC's industry-leading 7nm process.The thing is, AMD going solely with TSMC for 7 nm isn't a decision: it's a necessity. It's a necessity of increasing need for AMD to bank on its powerful forward momentum against Intel on the CPU wars. It's essential for AMD's continued push in the professional, server field. And it's of utmost importance for AMD's relevance in graphics technologies against NVIDIA's frankly dominating position (despite AMD controlling all high-performance games consoles, a strategy that will only increase its fruits for AMD, should they be able to maintain this exclusivity - and all points towards that). Zen 2, EPYC 2, Vega 20, Navi - those are not only sizeable pieces of AMD's product portfolio, these are its bread and butter.
Should anything befall TSMC, should the silicon giant trip, AMD will have all of its product portfolio endangered. Consumer and professional GPU and CPU products will all be manufactured under TSMC's 7 nm process, as AMD has stated time and again - and in quite an aggressive manner. Here's hoping other players step up to the 7 nm manufacturing task, or, that being as hard as it is, that nothing affects TSMC's ability to deliver, lest one giant brings down others with it.
87 Comments on AMD Chip Manufacturing to Lay Solely With TSMC On, After 7 nm - And Why It's not a Decision, but a Necessity
It's not that big an issue.
Also Gf were partnered with ibm afaik on gate all around at 5nm, something euv would make more doable, they made no announcement regarding it, I would not count GF out yet they may plan to leapfrog the 7nm node and it's tortuous introduction to Euv until a more stable manufacturing plant is available.
Ultimately the winner here is Intel. GloFo bowing out of the Nanometer Wars means that the pressure on the remaining fabricators just eased massively, and Intel's the one feeling that crunch the most with their 10nm woes. The chase after Moore's Law is going to slow down out of necessity as there just isn't enough supply from the smaller and newer nodes, and I'm betting that we're going to see some interesting tweaks of 12nm, 14nm and maybe even 16nm to compensate for that... and if there's one thing Intel has got right, it's iterating that bloody 14nm++++++++++ process of theirs.
We can only hope that, perhaps, this breathing room will lead to stakeholders having time for another look at silicon alternatives.
As @Raevenlord mentioned in his yet another AMD fan letter, GloFo had a deal with AMD. This meant AMD had limited choices, but also that they actually had a Fab available.
I think we agree that at this point AMD's future depends on delivering a product on 7nm. However, at TSMC they'll have to compete with Nvidia, who has higher margins and is likely a more attractive partner.
Can't find newer data but it's going to be out of date the moment AMD starts bulk ordering CPUs.
So the same wafer can provide much higher volume of chips on Zen2 dies compare to nVidia GPUs.
I am pretty sure both TSMC and AMD would benefit from higher yields.
And also the fact that how Zen is designed, these dies can be used to make EPYC and Threadripper, while all GPUs right now are monolithic thus high end parts would suffer on yields.
Sorry I always think of that when I hear the word "wasteland" and "broken MMO" in the same sentence.
But it's irrelevant. The point stands. That type of job? It's gone, and buying a dying fab won't bring it back (if anything can).
Of course, now they've become addicted to the Crack that is Asian slave labor (much like other US companies), perhaps you're right.
Give Nvidia & Intel.... THE SMACK DOWN! :nutkick:
On another note but related, what happens after 7nm fab? my guess is probably one more shrink then it's.... hello, quantum computers!
This personality type never truly went away though. We still had to introduce better labor laws over the years. I think we only had a few decades of a truly happy working force (in certain industries) during the 20th century... until these same personality types tasted the forbidden fruit of slavery again overseas. Not sure what would stop them once they have tasted. It's like a mad dog that has to be put down. At best, you have to bribe them with these low tax laws (and even that may not be a big enough carrot. Here's hoping). If it was easy to get them to all line up (like the Civil War), then you wouldn't have to do that. "We don't negotiate with terrorists!"
Do you know who the only reliable/competent people are in my life are? Fast food workers and delivery drivers. Do you know what that means? Anything that requires more intelligence is impossible to achieve among that vast majority of the population. Idiots have bred us down to Idiocracy levels already. I literally have to do everything myself or I get screwed on time, money or both. Before long I'll have to purchase larger and larger machines to fabricate everything.
You would assume there's at least one field I could rely on like medical, right? Nope. I have to diagnose my family, too, because even after a year of specialists and testing they can't figure out what I can in 15 mins of googling. People are worthless. Fix everyone unless they can prove their worth to breed.