AMD rumored to be using TSMC's 7nm HP node for Rome and Vega

[french toast]

No one with a brain would negotiate a contract that lets their supplier fine them, for buying elsewhere, what that supplier can't deliver.

That actually gives a supplier incentive not to deliver.

They don't have teams of lawyers working on contracts to miss such basic items.



A WSA that maintains >10nm business at GF, has obvious value to GF. It ensures a predictable customer for the foreseeable future for all of AMDs considerable non-leading edge business.

AMD has little leverage to end WSA with regards to that business and little incentive either. This is non critical, lower cost work, and AMD would have to pay to get out of it for negligible benefit.

The sane course of action for both parties, is AMD is free to do what it want on 7nm and better, while maintaining non-leading edge business with GF. Quota will be adjusted downward to reflect GF inability to deliver on leading edge.

WSA remains, but become a non issue because it's only for non critical work going forward.

This is most likely, sane and sensible route for both parties.

Ranting about less likely what ifs, really serves no purpose.

Dude, I'm not being funny, that is exactly what I have been saying all along.
-Aside from your assumptions about any fees not being paid (which may be true, but we don't know) and that nonsense about 7nm to fill the quota when this is all about them cancelling 7nm in the first place.
If you have the same outlook as me, ie; WSA agreement should be scrapped AFTER 12nm...why have you been arguing against my point?
Ridiculous, I'm out .

 

[moinmoin]

Right, so that means the WSA is useless, which goes nicely along with me saying 'scrap it'.
If the WSA is not scrapped(or made impotant until ran out) then that must mean Globalfoundries are making money out of AMD (if renewed)...contrary to peterscotts arguement.
As Mubadala own ~20% of AMD, hopefully they see sense and do one of the former.
*Edited.

There is no need to scrap the WSA if it only applies to legacy products anyway. And with the embedded products AMD has legacy products with long-term availability going up to 10 years into the future that wouldn't change the foundry anyway. Ryzen Pro is guaranteed for 24 months. Couldn't find the number for Epyc, but server chips usually also have long-term availability guarantees. All of these already launched products will stay at GloFo in any case and are very likely covering any remaining obligations AMD has due to the WSA.

 

[Kenmitch]

WSA remains, but become a non issue because it's only for non critical work going forward.

This is most likely, sane and sensible route for both parties.

What if the silicone AMD has to buy is more valuable if GF sells it to somebody else? The WSA has price fixing? AMD paying current market value? Just wondering if GF would make more money in the end if they just sold the wafers to other clients is all.

 

[JustMe21]

While the server side of things can generate more revenue, the adoption rate still seems to be slow, although the Spectre and Meltdown problems are prompting more people to consider it. Plenty of businesses look for long term stability and reliability and since Ryzen is fairly new, it has to prove both points. Perhaps AMD will release 7nm APUs with more CUs, hopefully up to 24 like in the Chinese chip (or at least offer a 16 CU version) and it would be an added value if it could Crossfire via the PCI-E bus. That would definitely appeal to a lot of OEMs and then AMD could also offer end users lower end Vega cards to boost the performance of their APU system.

 

[PeterScott]

Dude, I'm not being funny, that is exactly what I have been saying all along.
-Aside from your assumptions about any fees not being paid (which may be true, but we don't know) and that nonsense about 7nm to fill the quota when this is all about them cancelling 7nm in the first place.
If you have the same outlook as me, ie; WSA agreement should be scrapped AFTER 12nm...why have you been arguing against my point?
Ridiculous, I'm out .

If you have been saying the same thing as me, you have a funny way of phrasing it.

Because it looks more like you have been saying WSA is going to hurt them when they do 7nm at TSMC, so they must Kill the WSA completely.

When I have been saying the opposite. WSA is no longer a factor at 7nm (since GF can't deliver 7nm), and keeping it for the rest of the business is both reasonable and harmless to AMD.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I have a theory on that. Even though AMD APUs are generally better for iGPU gaming vs Intel, consumers overall purchasing decisions based on the potential of a system as oppose to it's current performance.

I guess? I think it has more to do with the fact that low-end systems from OEMs tend to use bargain basement components wherever possible, making things a headache for parts suppliers that want just a little bit more out of the hardware they sell to customers.

For example, I went looking around at AIO machines for a family member (my mom) recently and found that AMD's offerings were a barren desert. You would think Raven Ridge would be an ideal fit for an AIO, but no such luck. They're still hawking Bristol Ridge crap on the AMD side, and it isn't pretty. A lot of those machines were expensive, too. The absence of cat cores in the AMD lineup has really stripped down their AIO offerings. There were a few Stoney Ridge machines, but not many, and their performance was pretty bad for the price.

What's interesting is that it was kind of hard finding Goldmont+ AIOs as well. HP had a fairly nice cheap one that is basically discontinued.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I guess? I think it has more to do with the fact that low-end systems from OEMs tend to use bargain basement components wherever possible, making things a headache for parts suppliers that want just a little bit more out of the hardware they sell to customers.

For example, I went looking around at AIO machines for a family member (my mom) recently and found that AMD's offerings were a barren desert. You would think Raven Ridge would be an ideal fit for an AIO, but no such luck. They're still hawking Bristol Ridge crap on the AMD side, and it isn't pretty. A lot of those machines were expensive, too. The absence of cat cores in the AMD lineup has really stripped down their AIO offerings. There were a few Stoney Ridge machines, but not many, and their performance was pretty bad for the price.

What's interesting is that it was kind of hard finding Goldmont+ AIOs as well. HP had a fairly nice cheap one that is basically discontinued.

Weren't we told that they reduced density for some of the latest frequency improvements? So going backwards. Might be a contributing factor to the scarcity of 14nm Fab space. Never could have imagined this perfect storm.at present. No 10nm, chipset migration, reduced density for latest 14nm+++ node. A true nightmare.

Gotta get that performance somewhere.​