Samsung to produce Greenland GPUs for AMD starting Q2 2016

[HEXUS]

The new GPU will be produced on the 14nm FinFET LPP (Low Power Plus) process.

Read more.

[3dcandy]

I did wonder when AMD would move away from TSMC as it's been on the cards for a while!

[watercooled]

It could be a very interesting move if true, but I was still expecting AMD to stick with TSMC for their GPUs on 14/16. On one hand, Samsung have had variants of 14nm in mass production longer than TSMC which could be a win for AMD to differentiate from Nvidia, but at the same time, does Samsung have much experience producing very large processors like GPUs? I suppose at least GloFo have produced both large processors and specifically GPU logic on AMD's APUs though. I guess only time will tell!

Unless I'd read confirmation of it I wouldn't have been convinced about Qualcomm moving 820 production to Samsung either. And if Qualcomm are confident enough...

[The Hand]

I wonder if this means Samsung maybe producing AMD cpus on 10nm in 2018 or further on? A bit like Intel's tick tock system with their chips?

[Jimbo75]

Samsung and GF have an agreement where both get the technology the other develops, so Samsung would get this 14FF LPP from GF.

If TSMC's 16FF+ is in bad shape then Nvidia could be in a world of hurt. It's possible that AMD have made this move to prevent Nvidia from bailing themselves out at Samsung, of course Samsung won't exactly be falling over themselves to help the patent trolls anyway.

AMD have nothing at TSMC, that relationship appears to be over for now.

[watercooled]

As far as I know at least some of the existing console processors, along with some of their cat-core APUs are produced at TSMC for the time being. I think Devinder Kumar implied some of the console parts are in production at GloFo, but it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense - unless they're really struggling with volumes at TSMC I would've thought the cost of porting what is a fairly low-margin part to another foundry on a similar process would be prohibitive. But Kumar does seem to occasionally fumble wording of statements such as those and sometimes contradicts himself because of it. TBH I think I'd have to see silicon from GloFo/Samsung to completely believe it.

But yeah, if AMD are planning to move production of all of their GPUs to GF/Samsung, there don't appear to be any public plans for TSMC in the pipeline. It does seem strange considering historically they do seem to have been about the most consistent foundry, with GloFo leaving AMD up the creek without a paddle more than a couple of times.

[Hicks12]

GF had been taking time to get rolling yes and they did miss some key deadlines in the pass however since then they have rectified most issues and appear to be solidly improving and its pretty clear to see that they're very competent because Samsung wanted to partner with GF to pioneer this 14nm process, both are doing considerable work and GF has the expertise in the GPU/CPU area (in terms of large die sizes) and Samsung just have the general expertise that covers everything along with buckets of cash! .

Looks like AMDs plan to use GF has finally come to fruition with what could be a significant advantage given TSMC track record for sub 40nm process nodes, the infinite delays and the ever increasing costs... AMD may actually be at an advantage, im shocked!

Future looks good for the consumers next gen, cant wait to finally upgrade and enjoy VR with high fps hehe

[keithwalton]

TSMC have historically struggled for capacity, now that they make chips for Apple it's only natural that all their other customers will look elsewhere.

[lumireleon]

last I heard samsung was to buy AMD..................maybe at the end it will be a win-win situation for them.