Quote Originally Posted by eleeter View Post
Not this again. AMD is not going to outsource CPU production. It makes no sense on many levels. Firstly, TSMC is likely not capable of producing an AMD CPU their process is not advanced enough. And if TSMC does upgrade their tooling to do it, the end product would very likely end up worse, higher power, lower clocks etc.

Secondly, by producing the CPU at TSMC, AMD would probably make less per processor.

What this is really about is Fusion. AMD is going to have the GPU part of fusion fabbed by TSMC. The first real fusion product will be a side by side die arrangement, the GPU portion minted by TSMC, the CPU portion by AMD. The two are then slapped onto a single substrate.
1. TSMC process technology is way ahead of AMD, launches faster and matures earlier. And, TSMC will not upgrade their tools for AMD specifically as AMD's volume is fairly small compare to other semiconductor giants such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm.

2. AMD could make more as TSMC's quality control is top notch vs. big variances at AMD's own fab.

3. Mounting/stacking SOI and CMOS die isn't as easy a task as you would imagine.

Size does matter in the manufacturing business, and the only guys that could afford to charge forward and lead in manufacturing technologies are Intel, Samsung and TSMC. IBM/Hitachi could have patents but that's only paperwork. AMD? Nowhere on the map.