AMD plans to tap Globalfoundries and TSMC for 7nm

[WYP]

AMD will be creating different products with each Foundry partner.



Read more about AMD's plans to use both TSMC's and GlobalFoundries' 7nm processes.

 

[AlienALX]

Cool beans 8)

 

[Giggyolly]

Damn that's interesting. Imagine if they did split a product line between both, it would lead to another chipgate situation where one fab might be slightly worse than the other!

Really looking forward to zen on 7nm, I think that will be my next platform upgrade.
And hopefully Navi will be good too

 

[AlienALX]

My pal who used to be in Taiwan and used to work for Asus reckons the 4ghz limit on Ryzen is down to poor fab. So yeah, this could be very interesting indeed

 

[WYP]

Damn that's interesting. Imagine if they did split a product line between both, it would lead to another chipgate situation where one fab might be slightly worse than the other!

Really looking forward to zen on 7nm, I think that will be my next platform upgrade.
And hopefully Navi will be good too

AMD won't be making any products using both fabs. Some chip designs will be on one and some will be on the other, they won't do both.

It takes a lot of time and money to redesign chips on two different processes, nevermind the complaints they will get from consumers if one is better than the other.

 

[Giggyolly]

AMD won't be making any products using both fabs. Some chip designs will be on one and some will be on the other, they won't do both.

It takes a lot of time and money to redesign chips on two different processes, nevermind the complaints they will get from consumers if one is better than the other.

It would be very interesting to see how each fab performs! totally not worth the fallout though haha

 

[AngryGoldfish]

Some exciting news there. AMD seems very confident in the 7nm process and it's great they are in the position to use both GF and TMSC for their silicon. I really appreciate Lisa Su's attitude towards things as well. She seems quite down to earth, and even humble. I know that doesn't exactly mean very much when it's an engineering and business mind you need, but it's still nice to see from a massive company. She's very much in the public eye and that's important.

I'm also relieved to hear AMD are going to focus on sectors individually instead of the 'one GPU for everything' approach which to me was never going to succeed. I think Vega from the very beginning was destined to be misplaced. Even if game developers had adopted DX12 and Vulkan sooner to a more granular degree, Vega would still be behind Nvidia. Here's to hoping Navi will actually properly replace Polaris which I reckon was AMD's best GPU range since the 200 series.

 

[WYP]

Some exciting news there. AMD seems very confident in the 7nm process and it's great they are in the position to use both GF and TMSC for their silicon. I really appreciate Lisa Su's attitude towards things as well. She seems quite down to earth, and even humble. I know that doesn't exactly mean very much when it's an engineering and business mind you need, but it's still nice to see from a massive company. She's very much in the public eye and that's important.

I'm also relieved to hear AMD are going to focus on sectors individually instead of the 'one GPU for everything' approach which to me was never going to succeed. I think Vega from the very beginning was destined to be misplaced. Even if game developers had adopted DX12 and Vulkan sooner to a more granular degree, Vega would still be behind Nvidia. Here's to hoping Navi will actually properly replace Polaris which I reckon was AMD's best GPU range since the 200 series.

The big problem with AMD until now has been budget. This has prevented them from creating a wider range of chips, forcing them to use the same chips for multiple markets, which is a problem.

Even look at Ryzen and we see the same Silicon in Ryzen 3,5,7, Threadripper and EPYC. Compare that to how many chips Intel uses to cater to the same market.

Same applies to Nvidia, AMD had Vega 64/56, Polaris10/20 and Polaris11/21 to cater for the whole GPU market. Nvidia has GV100, GP100, GP102, GP104, GP106, GP107 and GP108. Three chips vs seven.

Now that AMD has some money they can hopefully invest in more chip designs for specific markets.

 

[NeverBackDown]

The big problem with AMD until now has been budget. This has prevented them from creating a wider range of chips, forcing them to use the same chips for multiple markets, which is a problem.

Even look at Ryzen and we see the same Silicon in Ryzen 3,5,7, Threadripper and EPYC. Compare that to how many chips Intel uses to cater to the same market.

Same applies to Nvidia, AMD had Vega 64/56, Polaris10/20 and Polaris11/21 to cater for the whole GPU market. Nvidia has GV100, GP100, GP102, GP104, GP106, GP107 and GP108. Three chips vs seven.

Now that AMD has some money they can hopefully invest in more chip designs for specific markets.

Not totally accurate. It's the same as AMD. They just split them over more versions. The architecture is still the same. The higher end ones just get more features because they generally are aimed at HPC class servers. So they also are addressing multiple markets. As they go down they strip more and more away.

More is not always better. Creates confusion. Just look at how many current Intel chips/chipsets/platforms we have right now. Even I don't understand it. It's all random crap packed together and sold by Intel. Doesn't mean anything honestly. Just lack of management.

 

[Radioman]

AMD won't be making any products using both fabs. Some chip designs will be on one and some will be on the other, they won't do both.

It takes a lot of time and money to redesign chips on two different processes, nevermind the complaints they will get from consumers if one is better than the other.

The Wafer Supply Agreement between AMD and Global Foundries is very specific and restrictive about what type of chip can be outsourced to 3rd Parties. Only Graphics Chips can be outsourced and only if AMD is willing to pay GloFo a penalty fee on every chip produced. And this provision is exclusive of other parameters particularly as it relates to Overall Order Quotas that AMD must meet.

 

[BigDaddyKong]

The big problem with AMD until now has been budget. This has prevented them from creating a wider range of chips, forcing them to use the same chips for multiple markets, which is a problem.

Even look at Ryzen and we see the same Silicon in Ryzen 3,5,7, Threadripper and EPYC. Compare that to how many chips Intel uses to cater to the same market.

Same applies to Nvidia, AMD had Vega 64/56, Polaris10/20 and Polaris11/21 to cater for the whole GPU market. Nvidia has GV100, GP100, GP102, GP104, GP106, GP107 and GP108. Three chips vs seven.

Now that AMD has some money they can hopefully invest in more chip designs for specific markets.

Now that Coindesk is ending bitcoin support along with the bans from so many countries. I would hate AMD to waste resources on mining and gaming specific hardware. If the bubble would bust over the next 6 months, they could be throwing a lot of that profit away.