• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

The Foundry Company to Make GPUs, To Accept Designs from Other Manufacturers Soon

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,243 (7.55/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
At the AMD Analyst Day event, AMD indicated in its presentations that The Foundry Company, a manufacturing company formed from the assets of AMD with the intestments of ATIC under the AssetSmart program, would in the future become an independent foundry company accepting foundry partnerships from companies apart from its one largest customer, AMD. The move would keep the newly formed company profitable and competitive with other Asian foundry companies.

In the same presentation, AMD also indicated that eventually it would assign manufacturing of its ATI Radeon GPUs and chipsets, to The Foundry Company (TFC). Currently GPUs and chipsets are being manufacuted by foundry companies such as TSMC and UMC in Taiwan. This move would send a significant chunk of manufacturing to TFC. Sources tell ATI Forum.de that at FAB38 Dresden, a major manufacturing facility, installations of the 40nm bulk manufacturing node is in full-swing (not to be confused with 45nm SOI, on which K10.5 processors are built). Also there are indications of the facility accepting orders for manufacturing chips on the new node from other fab-less companies, an attempt to bring in profitability right from the start.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 

locoty

New Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
Messages
61 (0.01/day)
System Name My Guardian
Processor Intel Q6600 @ 3,2 Ghz
Motherboard DFI LP UT T2RS
Cooling Cooler Master Hyper 212
Memory Corsair 4 x 1024 GB PC6400
Video Card(s) HIS HD 5870
Storage Seagate 1 x 80 GB, WDC 3 x 320 GB, WDC 4 x 500 GB, WDC 1 x 640 GB
Display(s) DELL 23" S2309W
Case iCUte SUper18
Power Supply FSP Everest 1010 Watt
Software Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
i hope this will make the GPU price, especially ATI, much cheaper in the future
 

1Kurgan1

The Knife in your Back
Joined
Dec 8, 2008
Messages
10,421 (1.79/day)
Location
Duluth, Minnesota
System Name My Comp | Fiancees Comp
Processor i7 5820k @ 4.6Ghz 1.285v| i5 2500k
Motherboard MSI x99 SLI Plus | AsRock Z77 Pro 3
Cooling Watercooled
Memory 16GB DDR4 2400 @ 2666 | 12GB DDR3 1600
Video Card(s) AMD R9 290x | MSI 5850 OC
Storage 128gb SSD + 2x 2TB | 2TB
Display(s) Asus 27" LCD | 25" Hanns G
Case CM Storm | CM Elite 430
Audio Device(s) Creative Recon 3D PCIe
Power Supply Enermax Galaxy 1250W | Rosewill 630w
Mouse Logitech G700s | Logitech G100s
Keyboard Logitech G901 | Logitech G105
Software Win 8.1 Ultimate x64 | Win 8.1 Ultimate x64
Benchmark Scores 3D Mark - Fire Strike Extreme - 4403
I'm sure it would even though ATI GPU's at this point in time are pretty reasonable since they found a good way to scale the cards instead of using garbage GPU's in the lower end of the top cards.
 
Joined
Apr 21, 2008
Messages
5,250 (0.87/day)
Location
IRAQ-Baghdad
System Name MASTER
Processor Core i7 3930k run at 4.4ghz
Motherboard Asus Rampage IV extreme
Cooling Corsair H100i
Memory 4x4G kingston hyperx beast 2400mhz
Video Card(s) 2X EVGA GTX680
Storage 2X Crusial M4 256g raid0, 1TbWD g, 2x500 WD B
Display(s) Samsung 27' 1080P LED 3D monitior 2ms
Case CoolerMaster Chosmos II
Audio Device(s) Creative sound blaster X-FI Titanum champion,Creative speakers 7.1 T7900
Power Supply Corsair 1200i, Logitch G500 Mouse, headset Corsair vengeance 1500
Software Win7 64bit Ultimate
Benchmark Scores 3d mark 2011: testing
Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
6,771 (0.94/day)
Location
Republic of Asia (a.k.a Irvine), CA
System Name ---
Processor FX 8350 @ 4.00 Ghz with 1.28v
Motherboard Gigabyte 990FX-UD3 v4.0, Hacked Bios F4.x
Cooling Silenx 4 pipe Tower cooler + 2 x Cougar 120mm fan, 3 x 120mm, 1 x 200 mm Red LED fan
Memory Kingston HyperX DDR3 1866 16GB + Patriot Memory DDR3 1866 16GB
Video Card(s) Asus R9 290 OC @ GPU - 1050, MEM - 1300
Storage Inland 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD for OS, WDC Black - 2TB + 1TB Storage, Inland 480GB SSD - Games
Display(s) 3 x 1080P LCDs - Acer 25" + Acer 23" + HP 23"
Case AeroCool XPredator X3
Audio Device(s) Built-in Realtek
Power Supply Corsair HX1000 Modular
Software Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
If I am not wrong this is how AMD was operating in its initial days and was manufacturing for Intel before producing its own CPUs. I hope this will bring more money into the company.
 

From_Nowhere

New Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2008
Messages
661 (0.11/day)
So this means cheaper (soon they'll be giving 'em away for free) AMD products in the future?
 

DarkMatter

New Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
1,714 (0.27/day)
Processor Intel C2Q Q6600 @ Stock (for now)
Motherboard Asus P5Q-E
Cooling Proc: Scythe Mine, Graphics: Zalman VF900 Cu
Memory 4 GB (2x2GB) DDR2 Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) GigaByte 8800GT Stock Clocks: 700Mhz Core, 1700 Shader, 1940 Memory
Storage 74 GB WD Raptor 10000rpm, 2x250 GB Seagate Raid 0
Display(s) HP p1130, 21" Trinitron
Case Antec p180
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi PLatinum
Power Supply 700W FSP Group 85% Efficiency
Software Windows XP
I don't see how this can make AMD products cheaper or much cheaper than before. Those fabs were owned by AMD prior to the creation of TFC. How can outsourcing to that newly created company make your products cheaper than when you owned the fabs??

Maybe once/if many other companies use TFC to create their chips, the manufacturing costs would go down and TFC could ask AMD less money than what costed AMD to manufacture when the fabs were theirs, but until then costs (and thus prices) are probably going to be slightly higher. That unless AMD was very bad, and I mean VERY BAD, managing their resources (I don't think so).
 
Joined
Apr 7, 2008
Messages
633 (0.10/day)
Location
Australia
System Name _Speedforce_ (Successor to Strike-X, 4LI3NBR33D-H, Core-iH7 & Nemesis-H)
Processor Intel Core i9 7980XE (Lapped) @ 5.2Ghz With XSPC Raystorm (Lapped)
Motherboard Asus Rampage VI Extreme (XSPC Watercooled) - Custom Heatsinks (Lapped)
Cooling XSPC Custom Water Cooling + Custom Air Cooling (From Delta 220's TFB1212GHE to Spal 30101504&5)
Memory 8x 8Gb G.Skill Trident Z RGB 4266MHz @ 4667Mhz (2x F4-4266C17Q-32GTZR)
Video Card(s) 3x Asus GTX1080 Ti (Lapped) With Customised EK Waterblock (Lapped) + Custom heatsinks (Lapped)
Storage 1x Samsung 970 EVO 2TB - 2280 (Hyper M.2 x16 Card), 7x Samsung 860 Pro 4Tb
Display(s) 6x Asus ROG Swift PG348Q
Case Aerocool Strike X (Modified)
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 & Aurvana XFi Headphones
Power Supply 2x Corsair AX1500i With Custom Sheilding, Custom Switching Unit. Braided Cables.
Mouse Razer Copperhead + R.A.T 9
Keyboard Ideazon Zboard + Optimus Maximus. Logitech G13.
Software w10 Pro x64.
Benchmark Scores pppft, gotta see it to believe it. . .
I don't see how this can make AMD products cheaper or much cheaper than before. Those fabs were owned by AMD prior to the creation of TFC. How can outsourcing to that newly created company make your products cheaper than when you owned the fabs??
I think AMD/ATi have already arranged their cheaper costs. It may have something to do with dragging others to use TFC too. Time will tell.

AMD/ATi just layed off 600 workers, instead of the forecasted 500. They will need the lower costs in 2009 to make up for the extra 20 million they spent restructuring for Q4 and 2009.
 

TheMailMan78

Big Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2007
Messages
22,599 (3.54/day)
Location
'Merica. The Great SOUTH!
System Name TheMailbox 5.0 / The Mailbox 4.5
Processor RYZEN 1700X / Intel i7 2600k @ 4.2GHz
Motherboard Fatal1ty X370 Gaming K4 / Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH Intel LGA 1155
Cooling MasterLiquid PRO 280 / Scythe Katana 4
Memory ADATA RGB 16GB DDR4 2666 16-16-16-39 / G.SKILL Sniper Series 16GB DDR3 1866: 9-9-9-24
Video Card(s) MSI 1080 "Duke" with 8Gb of RAM. Boost Clock 1847 MHz / ASUS 780ti
Storage 256Gb M4 SSD / 128Gb Agelity 4 SSD , 500Gb WD (7200)
Display(s) LG 29" Class 21:9 UltraWide® IPS LED Monitor 2560 x 1080 / Dell 27"
Case Cooler Master MASTERBOX 5t / Cooler Master 922 HAF
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec / SupremeFX X-Fi with Bose Companion 2 speakers.
Power Supply Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-750PX 750W Platinum / SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold
Mouse SteelSeries Sensei (RAW) / Logitech G5
Keyboard Razer BlackWidow / Logitech (Unknown)
Software Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
Benchmark Scores Benching is for bitches.
This is great news. AMD is expecting expansion of their company and market. You don't open the doors to a new foundry without some expected growth. I got a letter about this about a week ago but I didn't think much of it. It didn't say what the foundry would be doing until now. I doubt it will effect price but it does show AMD is branching out. Good news for my stocks :D FYI 600 people seems like a lot but that could be just one distribution center. In a company the size of AMD 600 employees is not that big of a deal.

I wonder when the last time Intel opened a foundry? Does anyone know?
 

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,243 (7.55/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
I wonder when the last time Intel opened a foundry? Does anyone know?

Intel has one of the largest semiconductor facilities known to man in Costa Rica.
 

TheMailMan78

Big Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2007
Messages
22,599 (3.54/day)
Location
'Merica. The Great SOUTH!
System Name TheMailbox 5.0 / The Mailbox 4.5
Processor RYZEN 1700X / Intel i7 2600k @ 4.2GHz
Motherboard Fatal1ty X370 Gaming K4 / Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH Intel LGA 1155
Cooling MasterLiquid PRO 280 / Scythe Katana 4
Memory ADATA RGB 16GB DDR4 2666 16-16-16-39 / G.SKILL Sniper Series 16GB DDR3 1866: 9-9-9-24
Video Card(s) MSI 1080 "Duke" with 8Gb of RAM. Boost Clock 1847 MHz / ASUS 780ti
Storage 256Gb M4 SSD / 128Gb Agelity 4 SSD , 500Gb WD (7200)
Display(s) LG 29" Class 21:9 UltraWide® IPS LED Monitor 2560 x 1080 / Dell 27"
Case Cooler Master MASTERBOX 5t / Cooler Master 922 HAF
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec / SupremeFX X-Fi with Bose Companion 2 speakers.
Power Supply Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-750PX 750W Platinum / SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold
Mouse SteelSeries Sensei (RAW) / Logitech G5
Keyboard Razer BlackWidow / Logitech (Unknown)
Software Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
Benchmark Scores Benching is for bitches.
Intel has one of the largest semiconductor facilities known to man in Costa Rica.

I understand that but have they expanded lately? I know their bigger :laugh: However have they had any growth?

FYI I'v been to Costa Rica. Beautiful place. I wonder if Intel needs an artist down there. :D
 

DarkMatter

New Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
1,714 (0.27/day)
Processor Intel C2Q Q6600 @ Stock (for now)
Motherboard Asus P5Q-E
Cooling Proc: Scythe Mine, Graphics: Zalman VF900 Cu
Memory 4 GB (2x2GB) DDR2 Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) GigaByte 8800GT Stock Clocks: 700Mhz Core, 1700 Shader, 1940 Memory
Storage 74 GB WD Raptor 10000rpm, 2x250 GB Seagate Raid 0
Display(s) HP p1130, 21" Trinitron
Case Antec p180
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi PLatinum
Power Supply 700W FSP Group 85% Efficiency
Software Windows XP
I think AMD/ATi have already arranged their cheaper costs. It may have something to do with dragging others to use TFC too. Time will tell.

Yeah I meant that. In the long run outsourcing to TFC can be cheaper if TFC can manage to get a lot of customers and TFC gives AMD an special treatment. AKA most of AMD manufacturing is "paid" by the others (though I don't know if that would be seen right by other customers, TFC could see it forced to give all it's customers, including AMD, the same deals). But that won't happen until they have enough customers. If anything the costs of running an aditional company would make chips a little bit more expensive.

FYI 600 people seems like a lot but that could be just one distribution center. In a company the size of AMD 600 employees is not that big of a deal.

Define "not that big of a deal". 600 out of ~15.000 is 4% of it's total workforce. I would say it's significant. And 1500 more on January might make Haytch's statement very true.

IMO AMD is not that big BTW, I have worked for local (AKA not even whole country-scale) companies twice as big. That's something that really surprised me the first time I readed about it, the low ammount of people working for semiconductor companies. I expected hundreds of thousands. Nvidia is at like 6000 I think?

I wonder when the last time Intel opened a foundry? Does anyone know?

Well they are constantly improving the fabs they own. So even if they don't buid new fabs, (they did it not too long ago anyway) I would say they are constantly growing. It's not as if they needed more fabs...

EDIT: I decided to bother doing a quick search in Google: http://www.chiplist.com/Intel_Starts_Building_of_New_Fab_in_China/tree3f-article--64-/

I didn't even knew about that. You see, they are doing new fabs. I trully didn't think they needed.
 

TheMailMan78

Big Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2007
Messages
22,599 (3.54/day)
Location
'Merica. The Great SOUTH!
System Name TheMailbox 5.0 / The Mailbox 4.5
Processor RYZEN 1700X / Intel i7 2600k @ 4.2GHz
Motherboard Fatal1ty X370 Gaming K4 / Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH Intel LGA 1155
Cooling MasterLiquid PRO 280 / Scythe Katana 4
Memory ADATA RGB 16GB DDR4 2666 16-16-16-39 / G.SKILL Sniper Series 16GB DDR3 1866: 9-9-9-24
Video Card(s) MSI 1080 "Duke" with 8Gb of RAM. Boost Clock 1847 MHz / ASUS 780ti
Storage 256Gb M4 SSD / 128Gb Agelity 4 SSD , 500Gb WD (7200)
Display(s) LG 29" Class 21:9 UltraWide® IPS LED Monitor 2560 x 1080 / Dell 27"
Case Cooler Master MASTERBOX 5t / Cooler Master 922 HAF
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec / SupremeFX X-Fi with Bose Companion 2 speakers.
Power Supply Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-750PX 750W Platinum / SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold
Mouse SteelSeries Sensei (RAW) / Logitech G5
Keyboard Razer BlackWidow / Logitech (Unknown)
Software Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
Benchmark Scores Benching is for bitches.
But that won't happen until they have enough customers. If anything the costs of running an aditional company would make chips a little bit more expensive.
Unless the Phenom II blows away the i7 they would be foolish to do any kind of market increase. AMDs only real advantage currently is their price/performance ratio. The current product doesn't warrant a price increase. Investors know this and know they will take an early "loss" on their investment. However down the line much more money can/will be made. This is a long term investment. Not something that can be paid for by a minor increase of profit and loss of a market advantage.

Define "not that big of a deal". 600 out of ~15.000 is 4% of it's total workforce. I would say it's significant. And 1500 more on January might make Haytch's statement very true.
Big deal would not be paying the remaining employees and being subject to a hostel take over. That 4% layoff just paid for the rest of the companies security and the future of its economy. Its called "trimming the fat".
 

DarkMatter

New Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
1,714 (0.27/day)
Processor Intel C2Q Q6600 @ Stock (for now)
Motherboard Asus P5Q-E
Cooling Proc: Scythe Mine, Graphics: Zalman VF900 Cu
Memory 4 GB (2x2GB) DDR2 Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) GigaByte 8800GT Stock Clocks: 700Mhz Core, 1700 Shader, 1940 Memory
Storage 74 GB WD Raptor 10000rpm, 2x250 GB Seagate Raid 0
Display(s) HP p1130, 21" Trinitron
Case Antec p180
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi PLatinum
Power Supply 700W FSP Group 85% Efficiency
Software Windows XP
So it's going to be the best option in the long term, but will nonetheless hurt the profits in 2009. That's what we said, we didnt discuss if it was a good strategic move or not.

And that's also true for the foundry company although in this case it is indeed going to take out some losses from AMD and that will make AMD stockholders happy in a time when probably are not compfortable. TFC will take the losses instead, but they will recover them in the future. At least that's their hope (I don't see why they wouldn't succed, but anything can happen) and in any case if TFC fails for any reason AMD would be safe.
 

PCpraiser100

New Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
1,062 (0.18/day)
System Name REBEL R1
Processor Core i7 920
Motherboard ASUS P6T
Cooling Stock
Memory 6GB OCZ GOLD TC LV Kit 1866MHz@1.65V 9-9-9-24
Video Card(s) Two Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor-X Xfire'd and OC'd (920/1330)
Storage Seagate 7200.11 500GB 32MB
Case Antec Three Hundred
Audio Device(s) ASUS Xonar D1 PCI Sound Card
Power Supply OCZ StealthXStream 500W
Software Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Benchmark Scores 16585 Performance Score on 3DMark Vantage
Now this is great news for AMD. I am starting to get excited about seeing high-end GPUs decrease in price.

:toast:
 
Joined
Nov 22, 2008
Messages
3,779 (0.65/day)
Location
Latin America, Uruguay
System Name The Lizard v2.4
Processor Intel Celeron G1840 (for the time being
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-H81-S2PH
Cooling Intel Stock Fan
Memory 16GB Kingston HyperX 1600
Video Card(s) MSI Gaming GTX 750Ti (For the time being)
Storage 500GB Samsung F1, 160GB Maxtor "Older than god"
Display(s) AOC 28' LCD
Case Coolermaster N200
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Antec VP500P
Software Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Benchmark Scores No crashes in the last 24 minutes.
i dont care if the foundry makes or not gpu. i only want that amd live so intel keeps working on making good chips and not like netburst :banghead:
 
Top