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Samsung will produce AMD GPU.

KiyorisKiyoris Member RarePosts: 2,130
edited December 2015 in Hardware
http://english.etnews.com/20151222200002

Samsung Electronics secured AMD as its toll manufacturing (foundry) customer for semiconductor chip and will produce AMD’s next graphic processing unit (GPU) chip starting from New Year.


It's not surprising, AMD has no chip making capability anymore and has been in financial trouble lately, firing 5 percent of its workforce last month. Globalfoundries is no longer in AMD hands, it has been sold to an Abu Dhabi investment firm from the middle east. And Samsung already makes chips for other companies like Nvidia, and previously it also built chips for Apple.

Samsung also has tech that AMD doesn't master, because of investments into IMEC, so AMD GPU can benefit from technology Samsung has.


Post edited by Kiyoris on

Comments

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,531
    So AMD doesn't fab their own chips anymore?  You know who else doesn't?  Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm, and for that matter, just about everyone else.  Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.  And even they both let other companies use their fabs to help amortize the cost of developing new processes and buying new fab equipment.

    AMD, like Nvidia, Qualcomm, ARM, and a lot of other major chip companies, bases their business on designing chips.  They don't fabricate the chips themselves, but then, hardly anyone else does, either.
  • MalaboogaMalabooga Member UncommonPosts: 2,977
    Both Samsung and GloFo will produce both AMDs GPUs and CPUs on same samsungs LPP process. Its been known for a while now, for those who follow. It just wasnt clear which one will make which, but both will make both.
  • KiyorisKiyoris Member RarePosts: 2,130
    edited December 2015

    Quizzical said:
     Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.
    Not really, the most advanced fabs are 300mm or higher.

    *IMEC has a 450mm fab in Leuven Belgium, the most advanced in the world. (been there several times myself)
    *SMIC has a 300mm fab in Beijing China, pretty advanced fab.
    *Infineon has several fabs in Dresden Germany and helps SMIC build their 300mm fabs.
    *STMicroelectronics has several 300mm fabs in China and France.
    *Toshiba has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    *Fujitsi has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    Post edited by Kiyoris on
  • KiyorisKiyoris Member RarePosts: 2,130
    edited December 2015
    Quizzical said:
     They don't fabricate the chips themselves, but then, hardly anyone else does, either.
    Stop being an armchair specialist, please. There is so much wrong with your statements I don't know where to begin most of the time.
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,531
    edited December 2015
    Kiyoris said:

    Quizzical said:
     Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.
    Not really, the most advanced fabs are 300mm or higher.

    *IMEC has a 450mm fab in Leuven Belgium, the most advanced in the world. (been there several times myself)
    *SMIC has a 300mm fab in Beijing China, pretty advanced fab.
    *Infineon has several fabs in Dresden Germany and helps SMIC build their 300mm fabs.
    *STMicroelectronics has several 300mm fabs in China and France.
    *Toshiba has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    *Fujitsi has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    So you would regard a 90 nm process node that uses 300 mm wafers as still being cutting edge in an era when fabs are shipping commercial chips built on a 14 nm process node because the 14 nm process node still uses 300 mm wafers?  Why do fabs keep coming out with new process nodes that still use 300 mm wafers if the wafer size is the main thing that matters?  For example, Intel has 90 nm, 65 nm, 45 nm, 32 nm, 22 nm, and now 14 nm.  TSMC has 90 nm, 80 nm, 65 nm, 55 nm, 40 nm, 28 nm, 20 nm, and now 16 nm.  And that's just since 90 nm; the move to 300 mm wafers happened well before that.  It's also ignoring that there are often several variants at a given feature size.  For example, Samsung's 14 nm LPE is not the same as their 14 nm LPP.
  • KiyorisKiyoris Member RarePosts: 2,130
    edited December 2015
    Quizzical said:
    Kiyoris said:

    Quizzical said:
     Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.
    Not really, the most advanced fabs are 300mm or higher.

    *IMEC has a 450mm fab in Leuven Belgium, the most advanced in the world. (been there several times myself)
    *SMIC has a 300mm fab in Beijing China, pretty advanced fab.
    *Infineon has several fabs in Dresden Germany and helps SMIC build their 300mm fabs.
    *STMicroelectronics has several 300mm fabs in China and France.
    *Toshiba has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    *Fujitsi has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    So you would regard a 90 nm process node that uses 300 mm wafers as still being cutting edge in an era when fabs are shipping commercial chips built on a 14 nm process node because the 14 nm process node still uses 300 mm wafers?
    Not sure what you're on about making stuff up again. 90nm?

    IMEC is producing 5nm chips, beyond the capabilities of..anyone..their fab is 4 years ahead of everyone else atm: http://www.cadence.com/cadence/newsroom/press_releases/pages/pr.aspx?xml=100715_imec5nm

    Toshiba is making 10nm test chips: http://https//www.toshiba.co.jp/rdc/rd/fields/08_e02_e.htm

    UMC is ready to produce 14nm chips  http://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/umc-14nm-finfet-technology-will-be-ready-for-tape-outs-by-year-end/
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,531
    Kiyoris said:
    Quizzical said:
    Kiyoris said:

    Quizzical said:
     Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.
    Not really, the most advanced fabs are 300mm or higher.

    *IMEC has a 450mm fab in Leuven Belgium, the most advanced in the world. (been there several times myself)
    *SMIC has a 300mm fab in Beijing China, pretty advanced fab.
    *Infineon has several fabs in Dresden Germany and helps SMIC build their 300mm fabs.
    *STMicroelectronics has several 300mm fabs in China and France.
    *Toshiba has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    *Fujitsi has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    So you would regard a 90 nm process node that uses 300 mm wafers as still being cutting edge in an era when fabs are shipping commercial chips built on a 14 nm process node because the 14 nm process node still uses 300 mm wafers?
    Not sure what you're on about making stuff up again. 90nm?

    IMEC is producing 5nm chips, beyond the capabilities of..anyone..their fab is 4 years ahead of everyone else atm: http://www.cadence.com/cadence/newsroom/press_releases/pages/pr.aspx?xml=100715_imec5nm

    Toshiba is making 10nm test chips: http://https//www.toshiba.co.jp/rdc/rd/fields/08_e02_e.htm

    UMC is ready to produce 14nm chips  http://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/umc-14nm-finfet-technology-will-be-ready-for-tape-outs-by-year-end/
    Making test chips is not at all similar to making chips that you can sell in commercial products.  You don't think that the very first wafer to come out of a fab on a new process node gets cut up and sold to the general public like the more mature wafers that come out years later, do you?

    Your link for Toshiba is about flash memory, not logic chips.  Toshiba/SanDisk is one of the major producers of flash memory, but that's not logic chips.

    UMC is a pure-play foundry, like Global Foundries and TSMC.  They don't design their own chips other than for testing purposes; they only fabricate chips designed by other companies.
  • 13lake13lake Member UncommonPosts: 719
    edited December 2015
    Kiyoris said:
    Not sure what you're on about making stuff up again. 90nm?

    IMEC is producing 5nm chips, beyond the capabilities of..anyone..their fab is 4 years ahead of everyone else atm: http://www.cadence.com/cadence/newsroom/press_releases/pages/pr.aspx?xml=100715_imec5nm

    Toshiba is making 10nm test chips: http://https//www.toshiba.co.jp/rdc/rd/fields/08_e02_e.htm

    UMC is ready to produce 14nm chips  http://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/umc-14nm-finfet-technology-will-be-ready-for-tape-outs-by-year-end/
    Kiyoris said:

    Quizzical said:
     Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.
    Not really, the most advanced fabs are 300mm or higher.

    *IMEC has a 450mm fab in Leuven Belgium, the most advanced in the world. (been there several times myself)
    *SMIC has a 300mm fab in Beijing China, pretty advanced fab.
    *Infineon has several fabs in Dresden Germany and helps SMIC build their 300mm fabs.
    *STMicroelectronics has several 300mm fabs in China and France.
    *Toshiba has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    *Fujitsi has 300mm fabs in Japan.
    Directly above you quote wafer sizes without specified node size of non-experimental production lines, and above that you quote experimental non-production nodes without wafer sizes. That's called cherry-picking.

    The experimental nodes in the top most quote do not count because of their experimental status, and the normal production lines in the below quote do not produce neither current gen gpu nor cpu chips(nor do they produce nor produced previous 2 generations). And more than half of the ones u listed do not even produce current gen flash for ram/ssds.

    Not to mention that even if they could have, they would had not be able to to produce in sufficient quantities.

    As Quizzical said logic chips are a paradigm shift of complexity compared to nand chips.

    There are only 3 fabs that have produced up to this point, necessary logic chips for finished gpus/cpus :
     
    Intel 
    TSMC
    GlobalFoundries

    Now there will be 4

    +Samsung

    And Samsung and GlobalFoundries will use the same tools and knowledge and processes, so there are still only 3 distinct fab processes.

    Whether them or others produce socs or parts for mobile market, or produce secondary parts like memory controllers or HBM substrate is irrelevant to this discussion.
    I'd also argue that any wafer not in 14nm/16nm node is also irrelevant to this discussion.
  • 13lake13lake Member UncommonPosts: 719
    AMD stock is skyrocketing every since the announced Samsung-AMD deal, yay !
  • MukeMuke Member RarePosts: 2,614
    Kiyoris said:
    http://english.etnews.com/20151222200002

    Samsung Electronics secured AMD as its toll manufacturing (foundry) customer for semiconductor chip and will produce AMD’s next graphic processing unit (GPU) chip starting from New Year.


    It's not surprising, AMD has no chip making capability anymore and has been in financial trouble lately, firing 5 percent of its workforce last month. Globalfoundries is no longer in AMD hands, it has been sold to an Abu Dhabi investment firm from the middle east. And Samsung already makes chips for other companies like Nvidia, and previously it also built chips for Apple.

    Samsung also has tech that AMD doesn't master, because of investments into IMEC, so AMD GPU can benefit from technology Samsung has.


    Is this weird?

    Try to find a single Samsung/Sony HD tv without Philips (rival) components.

    This goes for every hardware manufacturer.

    "going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    Quizzical said:
    So AMD doesn't fab their own chips anymore?  You know who else doesn't?  Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm, and for that matter, just about everyone else.  Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.  And even they both let other companies use their fabs to help amortize the cost of developing new processes and buying new fab equipment.

    AMD, like Nvidia, Qualcomm, ARM, and a lot of other major chip companies, bases their business on designing chips.  They don't fabricate the chips themselves, but then, hardly anyone else does, either.
    True. It is still bad news, the fewer companies there is who produce their own chips the less competition we get. Also computers will be more sensitive to natural disasters, like when the flooding in Thailand raised harddrive prices a few years back.

    Samsung is very competent though so it might be good news for AMD fans but it still worry me that all good graphicscards will be manufactured by the same company. A huge natural disaster  or a war and we would have to live on Intels lame built in chips for years.
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,531
    Loke666 said:
    Quizzical said:
    So AMD doesn't fab their own chips anymore?  You know who else doesn't?  Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm, and for that matter, just about everyone else.  Intel and Samsung are the only companies in the world that still both design and fab logic chips that are anywhere remotely near the cutting edge.  And even they both let other companies use their fabs to help amortize the cost of developing new processes and buying new fab equipment.

    AMD, like Nvidia, Qualcomm, ARM, and a lot of other major chip companies, bases their business on designing chips.  They don't fabricate the chips themselves, but then, hardly anyone else does, either.
    True. It is still bad news, the fewer companies there is who produce their own chips the less competition we get. Also computers will be more sensitive to natural disasters, like when the flooding in Thailand raised harddrive prices a few years back.

    Samsung is very competent though so it might be good news for AMD fans but it still worry me that all good graphicscards will be manufactured by the same company. A huge natural disaster  or a war and we would have to live on Intels lame built in chips for years.
    I say you have it backwards:  it would be better if there were more competition among pure-play foundries than if everyone fabbed their own chips.  Intel has some great fabs, but most of the tech companies you care about aren't allowed to use Intel fabs because they don't want to build chips for their competitors--and that includes any non-Intel CPUs or GPUs.

    During the Athlon 64 days, AMD could only take a small share of the market because they could only fab so many chips.  If Zen is great, AMD could take an outright majority of the desktop and laptop markets for CPUs in a short period of time.  But that's a big if; if Zen is awful, AMD can expect bankruptcy regardless of who fabs it.

    Also, all non-integrated graphics (both from Nvidia and AMD) were manufactured at TSMC for many years.  If AMD goes elsewhere, that adds a lot more diversity of high-performance GPU production locations than we've had in many years.

    Global Foundries recently announced that AMD had taped out multiple chips there.  It's not clear whether the chips are CPU, GPU, APU, or some combination of them.

    AMD has mostly fabricated their integrated graphics at Global Foundries ever since Llano, though there have been exceptions.  So it's not like TSMC being destroyed would end all non-Intel GPU production.  It would mean that Kaveri is the top of the line for a while, though, which would be a very bad thing.
  • H0urg1assH0urg1ass Member EpicPosts: 2,380
    So one of the best producers of high-end quality electronics will be making AMD chips at their factories?

    All I see is win here.
  • joeybootsjoeyboots Member UncommonPosts: 628
    H0urg1ass said:
    So one of the best producers of high-end quality electronics will be making AMD chips at their factories?

    All I see is win here.

    ^^This.

    I agree 100%
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