The Glofo vs. the world lawsuit thread

[IronWing]

Hi, my name is Ironwing and I'm here to save the forum.

Go…

 

[IronWing]

Here's the story:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1479...gement-apple-qualcomm-others-named-defendants

 

[zinfamous]

How is AMD not listed as a defendant? They are the only company fabbing from and shipping TSMC 7nm this year. Considering that GloFo still depends heavily on AMD for 12nm and 14nm, I wonder what kind of shenanigans are involved.

.....conspiracist in me thinks this has something to do with Raja fleeing over to Intel late last year, carrying some secret executive talk with him regarding AMD's dealings to set up contracts with TSMC before he left, and dude is using this as an end-around, expected Intel-style underhanded maneuver to sabotage AMD shipments when, yet again, AMD is thumping them in performance across all sectors. Intel is probably the only semiconducter company out there that wouldn't be affected by this.

....hmm, maybe more likely than not, lol.

 

[nakedfrog]

This should be interesting, in a dry technical kind of way.

 

[darkswordsman17]

How is AMD not listed as a defendant? They are the only company fabbing from and shipping TSMC 7nm this year. Considering that GloFo still depends heavily on AMD for 12nm and 14nm, I wonder what kind of shenanigans are involved.

.....conspiracist in me thinks this has something to do with Raja fleeing over to Intel late last year, carrying some secret executive talk with him regarding AMD's dealings to set up contracts with TSMC before he left, and dude is using this as an end-around, expected Intel-style underhanded maneuver to sabotage AMD shipments when, yet again, AMD is thumping them in performance across all sectors. Intel is probably the only semiconducter company out there that wouldn't be affected by this.

....hmm, maybe more likely than not, lol.

Perhaps because AMD is probably almost GF's only customer outside their non-finfet stuff and AMD would likely halt their GF production in response, killing one of GF's few remaining big revenue streams. There might even be some anti-litigation agreements in the WSA that is preventing it as well.

What further makes this potentially head scratching is that there are rumors that GF sold a bunch of their IP (and even one of their fabs) to another company. Something like this I would think would muddy that up or that would muddy this up. I could see either GF turning into a patent troll or maybe this other company being a front for one (and then them going aggressively for lawsuits over IP, but if the IP transferred, then I think that would screw up GF's case, or it'd need to be the new company bringing it).

Which perhaps its simple timing, and by that I mean, the current American government's stance:

“While semiconductor manufacturing has continued to shift to Asia, GF has bucked the trend by investing heavily in the American and European semiconductor industries, spending more than $15 billion dollars in the last decade in the U.S. and more than $6 billion in Europe's largest semiconductor manufacturing fabrication facility. These lawsuits are aimed at protecting those investments and the US and European-based innovation that powers them. For years, while we have been devoting billions of dollars to domestic research and development, TSMC has been unlawfully reaping the benefits of our investments. This action is critical to halt Taiwan Semiconductor’s unlawful use of our vital assets and to safeguard the American and European manufacturing base."

 

[zinfamous]

^Yeah, I get most of that, but what still baffles me about it is that one of the things that the suit is requesting, is for all shipments of 7nm products from TSMC to be banned in the USA. ....this only effects AMD right now, lol. You'd think that both GloFo and AMD are well aware of this, and they are aware that the other is aware of this....it seems meaningless to name them in the suit if what you are doing effectively halts their business as an end-around. That's why it seems shady in that indirect assault on your inventory...total Intel strategy, lol (again, the only company not effected). Of course could be totally unrelated, but man, the timing of this after Rome has had time to marinate in the minds of reviewers, customers, the press, the Intel boardroom....

(actually, I think Apple has their A-whatever coming out on 7nm next?)

But yeah, very patent trollish. Their days are pretty clearly numbered as an independent entity, so it's either plan to get bought out by Samsung or TSMC or hell, Intel (lol), or pivot to straight up patent trolling with a total of 4 employed hedge fund managers and lawyers, and a bunch of empty offices with never-answering phone lines dotted all over the Caribbean, Delaware, and Slovenia.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, moral of the story, we should stock up on 3rd-Gen Ryzen CPUs NOW, before they get taken off of the market, before AMD can re-layout for Samsung 7nm? (Do they currently offer 7nm?)

 

[ondma]

How is AMD not listed as a defendant? They are the only company fabbing from and shipping TSMC 7nm this year. Considering that GloFo still depends heavily on AMD for 12nm and 14nm, I wonder what kind of shenanigans are involved.

.....conspiracist in me thinks this has something to do with Raja fleeing over to Intel late last year, carrying some secret executive talk with him regarding AMD's dealings to set up contracts with TSMC before he left, and dude is using this as an end-around, expected Intel-style underhanded maneuver to sabotage AMD shipments when, yet again, AMD is thumping them in performance across all sectors. Intel is probably the only semiconducter company out there that wouldn't be affected by this.

....hmm, maybe more likely than not, lol.

Seriously??? How is your supply of tin foil hats holding up?

 

[darkswordsman17]

^Yeah, I get most of that, but what still baffles me about it is that one of the things that the suit is requesting, is for all shipments of 7nm products from TSMC to be banned in the USA. ....this only effects AMD right now, lol. You'd think that both GloFo and AMD are well aware of this, and they are aware that the other is aware of this....it seems meaningless to name them in the suit if what you are doing effectively halts their business as an end-around. That's why it seems shady in that indirect assault on your inventory...total Intel strategy, lol (again, the only company not effected). Of course could be totally unrelated, but man, the timing of this after Rome has had time to marinate in the minds of reviewers, customers, the press, the Intel boardroom....

(actually, I think Apple has their A-whatever coming out on 7nm next?)

But yeah, very patent trollish. Their days are pretty clearly numbered as an independent entity, so it's either plan to get bought out by Samsung or TSMC or hell, Intel (lol), or pivot to straight up patent trolling with a total of 4 employed hedge fund managers and lawyers, and a bunch of empty offices with never-answering phone lines dotted all over the Caribbean, Delaware, and Slovenia.

You're way off, there's tons of 7nm products out. Qualcomm (who is in practically all of the US market Android phones) and Apple both have 7nm chips and have for almost a year now. Apple is already on whatever is after 7nm at TSMC (not sure if that's 7+, 6, or what) which will be coming out in the newest iPhones in like 2 weeks. I believe the next gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft are supposed to be (and both of the current systems would be blocked since they're on older TSMC processes). It'd also block all of Nvidia's products (including the Nintendo Switch). This is bigger than 7nm I'm pretty sure, but even just 7nm would be pretty significant.

Effectively AMD and Intel (and companies using their chips) would be the only major tech companies that wouldn't be affected by the ban (but plenty of their partners' stuff uses chips from some of the companies targeted - like for wifi/networking like the Surface line and motherboards that don't use Intel's networking chips, which it might indirectly ban AMD as they're using ASMedia chips for the chipsets and I'm not sure where they're produced). I think even some of the Intel Atom chips were made at TSMC (I think those are used in stuff like modems and routers). I might be wrong on that aspect though.

 

[zinfamous]

Last I recall, current 7nm fab at TSMC are only stamping wafers for AMD and Apple. I don't think 7nm+ or 6/5nm have taped out for anyone yet, but yeah, I do believe those are scheduled for XBox and PS5. Wasn't Radeon VII the first 7nm product? ---or just the first 7nm discreet GPU? ...it was the industry first 7nm "something" for sure, lol.

Anyway, how is AMD not effected by a blanket ban of all 7nm shipments from TSMC? That is all of Zen2 and Rome, lol (chiplets from TSMC, IO from GloFo). Navi is also 7nm from TSMC

 

[zinfamous]

Seriously??? How is your supply of tin foil hats holding up?

It's fun that way, and at least in OT, we can more freely call people like myself morons for saying moronic things.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

GloFo is gonna do the RAMBUS into oblivion.

Before long they'll be just another office building off the 101 staffed by a handful of lawyers.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Last I recall, current 7nm fab at TSMC are only stamping wafers for AMD and Apple. I don't think 7nm+ or 6/5nm have taped out for anyone yet, but yeah, I do believe those are scheduled for XBox and PS5. Wasn't Radeon VII the first 7nm product? ---or just the first 7nm discreet GPU? ...it was the industry first 7nm "something" for sure, lol.

Anyway, how is AMD not effected by a blanket ban of all 7nm shipments from TSMC? That is all of Zen2 and Rome, lol (chiplets from TSMC, IO from GloFo). Navi is also 7nm from TSMC

No, I don't think Vega 20 was even close to being the first 7nm chip. It might have been AMD's first 7nm chip (although I'm not even sure about that, I thought they had samples of Zen 2 before Vega 20 started production, but they might've been sampling Vega 20 chips before sampling Zen 2, then Vega 20 went into actual full production run, followed by Zen 2). For sure though, I think whatever Kirin chip and then Apple were the first mass produced chips on 7nm. The Snapdragon 855 started production in December I think so at least some of AMD's stuff likely beat it. But there's plenty of non-AMD 7nm chips out there.

Yes, they have. 7+ I think is in mass production even (heck I think they've started risk production on 5 which is an advancement of 7+, while risk production of 6, which is an advancement of 7 starts early next year; which I don't know how 7+ and 5 leap frogged 7 and 6). I believe things are like last year, where there's a Kirin SoC, then Apple, and then we'll probably see Qualcomm's newest SoC follow suit.

Because they aren't named. If GF was going after them, they likely would have specifically been named. AMD might have license to use the patents, which would mean they could get an exemption as they wouldn't have violated the order enabling the ban.