Editorial AMD Chip Manufacturing to Lay Solely With TSMC On, After 7 nm - And Why It's not a Decision, but a Necessity

[FordGT90Concept]

TSMC hasn't been developing 10nm. and Intel hasn't been developing 7nm. Just the opposite.

I had to look up Intel 7 nm myself and it's true:
https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/fab-42-recent-announcement/

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Samsung are the biggest chip maker now,, yet no one's mentioned them, they have 7nm parts out in memory ASICS at least with tape outs of others and they have worked with Amd before.
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.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Samsung's biggest chip has how many transistors? 1 billion? AMD/Intel/NVIDIA need in the 10s of billions.

 

[oxidized]

I had to look up Intel 7 nm myself and it's true:
https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/fab-42-recent-announcement/

Ok but this is a pretty old news now, also, i think they kinda cancelled it, and they'll probably be jumping to 5nm from 10, or anyway they won't be shipping products with 7nm pretty sure.

 

[Assimilator]

Samsung's biggest chip has how many transistors? 1 billion? AMD/Intel/NVIDIA need in the 10s of billions.

GP107 / GTX 1050 is 3.3 billion transistors, and it doesn't seem like NVIDIA has had any issues with those chips. I'm sure AMD and Samsung have talked before, and now that GloFo has thrown in the towel there will be more than talking going on.

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.

 

[notb]

LOLNOPE. Foundries are too much risk. That's why that rumor not long ago surfaced of Intel going fabless too. To shrink processes further requires crazy amounts of R&D. It's getting to a point where for profit corporations are struggling to justify the cost. AMD sold GloFo back when foundries were a less risky venture. Now it's severe risk.

This theory is maybe true for an elastic market with many suppliers. It isn't true here.
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.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

With no more GloFo, AMD will be TSMC's #1 customer. Guesstimates for 2014 (28nm GPUs and console APUs if memory serves):

Can't find newer data but it's going to be out of date the moment AMD starts bulk ordering CPUs.

 

[Zubasa]

With no more GloFo, AMD will be TSMC's #1 customer. Guesstimates for 2015:

Also CPUs dies are significantly smaller than most GPUs these days, so much higher yields especially on new nodes.
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.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

32-core Threadripper has 19.2 billion transistors, more than GT102 (18.9 billion), and a 64-core EPYC is coming which is sold by the pallet to power datacenters and super computers.

 

[Zubasa]

32-core Epyc has 19 billion transistors, more than GT102, and AMD sells them by the pallet to power data centers and super computers.

And the most ingenious part of that is it is split across 4-dies, highly beneficial on new nodes for yield.

 

[R-T-B]

Maybe it is time for AMD to buy back it foundary form GlobalFoundaries.

Maybe they'll bring back jobs to the US (or my locale specifically.. Texas). :\

I mean if these two things happened, I'm pretty sure you'd have an empty warehouse in texas full of homeless people within 1 year. Sorry guys, pipedream.

How could so much change within a decade? It's very strange. I think the economic crisis/2008 warped people's thinking a bit.

More like as you get smaller, science works against you. Because of Moore's law, it did not take long.

Lies, we're surrounded by lies and useful idiots that propagate them.

I mean, without a design you ain't got much.

 

[StrayKAT]

I mean if these two things happened, I'm pretty sure you'd have an empty warehouse in texas full of homeless people within 1 year. Sorry guys, pipedream..

This is better compared to the tech wasteland created when they left? Austin is known for jack shit now.. except broken MMOs.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

And the most ingenious part of that is it is split across 4-dies, highly beneficial on new nodes for yield.

Navi was supposed to do the same for GPUs but that plan apparently got scratched.

 

[R-T-B]

As opposed to tech wasteland it created? Austin is known for jack shit now.. except broken MMOs.

Fallen Earth?

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).

 

[StrayKAT]

Fallen Earth?

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. It's gone, and buying a dying fab won't bring it back (if anything can).

Companies leave because of crisis and taxes. Both of these are things of the past for the time being.

Of course, now they've become addicted to the Crack that is Asian slave labor (much like other US companies), perhaps you're right.

 

[R-T-B]

I believe that I am, but so does everyone, so who knows? I just don't bet on America out-sweatshopping Asia.

 

[AlwaysHope]

Looking forward to Navi, my next gpu upgrade.
Give Nvidia & Intel.... THE SMACK DOWN!

On another note but related, what happens after 7nm fab? my guess is probably one more shrink then it's.... hello, quantum computers!

 

[StrayKAT]

I believe that I am, but so does everyone, so who knows? I just don't bet on America out-sweatshopping Asia.

America's population definitely wouldn't stand for it.. we already had a war over roughly the same thing (cheap and/or free labor).

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!"

 

[AlwaysHope]

America's population definitely wouldn't stand for it.. we already had a war over roughly the same thing (cheap and/or free labor).

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!"

Presuming labor is human, what about the development of bots? In accelerated R&D as I type this...

 

[StrayKAT]

Presuming labor is human, what about the development of bots? In accelerated R&D as I type this...

If by regular bots (not AI), I guess we'll have to cope with being obsolete or jobs for only the highly specialized. This is probably the only way I'd support Communism. lol. What else are people going to do?

 

[TheGuruStud]

If by regular bots (not AI), I guess we'll have to cope with being obsolete or jobs for only the highly specialized. This is probably the only way I'd support Communism. lol. What else are people going to do?

Quit breeding and enforce eugenics worldwide like a sane society would. But humans are trash.

 

[StrayKAT]

Quit breeding and enforce eugenics worldwide like a sane society would. But humans are trash.

I'm not very social, but I still love people. The idea of them anyway.

 

[Assimilator]

Quit breeding and enforce eugenics worldwide like a sane society would. But humans are trash.

Easy there, Goebbels.

 

[R-T-B]

Easy there, Goebbels.

Yeah, I was gonna say...

 

[TheGuruStud]

Yeah, I was gonna say...

No room for SJWs. The stupid have to go.

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.