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No, this is just AMD doing the bare minimum to meet contractual obligations with Global Foundries. None of their other product lines make sense to fab on GF’s o

No, this is just AMD doing the bare minimum to meet contractual obligations with Global Foundries. None of their other product lines make sense to fab on GF’s older process.

paulmd 7y ago
their IO dies are still fabbed on 12nm, that's a big chunk of their obligation with GF. Also, since console production is booked through AMD that that might count as well.
- anon73044 7y ago
  IIRC all the AM4/ThreadRipper/Epyc chipsets are on a 12nm or larger process and still produced by GF.
  - paulmd 7y ago
    Really interestingly, the IO die and the X570 chipset are both the same piece of silicon running different firmware. That's creative and an interesting vector to increase your yields.
    - gruez 7y ago
      source for this?
      - anon73044 7y ago
        https://mobile.twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1138443875154944000 https://mobile.twitter.com/IanCutress/status/113844387515494... Has some details, but doesn't state it explicitly: https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/amd-64-core-epyc-cpu-die-design-architecture-ryzen-3000 https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/amd-64-core-epyc-cpu-d... "Those processors are a complete system on a chip with both the northbridge and southbridge on-chip." https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/matisse https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/matisse
- jagger27 7y ago
  I suppose the current generation consoles are still on 12nm, but that must be ramping down at this point. PS5 and Xbox-something are a going to be big chunk of the 7nm capacity (30,000 wafers/mo) AMD took over from Apple, since they’re moving to TSMC’s next node for the next iPhone. AdoredTV recently did a rough breakdown of how many wafers it’ll take for each product line. Epyc only needs about 1,500 wafers from TSMC since the chiplets are so high yield. Desktop and the new high end laptop parts don’t need much more. What boggles my mind is that between the new consoles they’ll need something like 10,000 wafers per month if this generation’s sales are on par with last generation. I guess it’s a nice way for TSMC to keep 7nm production up as Apple, AMD, and the other big ARM players move onto better nodes. Edit: the consoles take so many wafers because they’re going to be giant monolithic APU designs somewhere in the 400mm^2 range.
  - paulmd 7y ago
    Ramping down, sure, but they'll keep going a long time for production for the developing world. Consoles have extremely long lifespans in places like South America, India, and Africa, where $600 might be your entire yearly income. You're not going to race out and buy a PS5 on that. It can be somewhat surprising but PS3 production was only discontinued in 2017, Xbox 360 production was discontinued in 2016. https://www.eteknix.com/playstation-3-officially-discontinued-sony/ https://www.eteknix.com/playstation-3-officially-discontinue... http://news.xbox.com/2016/04/20/xbox-360-celebrating-10-years/ http://news.xbox.com/2016/04/20/xbox-360-celebrating-10-year...

No, this is just AMD doing the bare minimum to meet contractual obligations with Global Foundries. None of their other product lines make sense to fab on GF’s older process.

paulmd 7y ago

their IO dies are still fabbed on 12nm, that's a big chunk of their obligation with GF. Also, since console production is booked through AMD that that might count as well.

anon73044 7y ago
IIRC all the AM4/ThreadRipper/Epyc chipsets are on a 12nm or larger process and still produced by GF.
- paulmd 7y ago
  Really interestingly, the IO die and the X570 chipset are both the same piece of silicon running different firmware. That's creative and an interesting vector to increase your yields.
  - gruez 7y ago
    source for this?
    - anon73044 7y ago
      https://mobile.twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1138443875154944000 https://mobile.twitter.com/IanCutress/status/113844387515494... Has some details, but doesn't state it explicitly: https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/amd-64-core-epyc-cpu-die-design-architecture-ryzen-3000 https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/amd-64-core-epyc-cpu-d... "Those processors are a complete system on a chip with both the northbridge and southbridge on-chip." https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/matisse https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/matisse
jagger27 7y ago
I suppose the current generation consoles are still on 12nm, but that must be ramping down at this point. PS5 and Xbox-something are a going to be big chunk of the 7nm capacity (30,000 wafers/mo) AMD took over from Apple, since they’re moving to TSMC’s next node for the next iPhone. AdoredTV recently did a rough breakdown of how many wafers it’ll take for each product line. Epyc only needs about 1,500 wafers from TSMC since the chiplets are so high yield. Desktop and the new high end laptop parts don’t need much more. What boggles my mind is that between the new consoles they’ll need something like 10,000 wafers per month if this generation’s sales are on par with last generation. I guess it’s a nice way for TSMC to keep 7nm production up as Apple, AMD, and the other big ARM players move onto better nodes. Edit: the consoles take so many wafers because they’re going to be giant monolithic APU designs somewhere in the 400mm^2 range.
- paulmd 7y ago
  Ramping down, sure, but they'll keep going a long time for production for the developing world. Consoles have extremely long lifespans in places like South America, India, and Africa, where $600 might be your entire yearly income. You're not going to race out and buy a PS5 on that. It can be somewhat surprising but PS3 production was only discontinued in 2017, Xbox 360 production was discontinued in 2016. https://www.eteknix.com/playstation-3-officially-discontinued-sony/ https://www.eteknix.com/playstation-3-officially-discontinue... http://news.xbox.com/2016/04/20/xbox-360-celebrating-10-years/ http://news.xbox.com/2016/04/20/xbox-360-celebrating-10-year...