TSMC confirms entry into X86 business

TSMC CEO Rick Tsai has confirmed that the company is entering the X86 contract manufacturing business. This move puts TSMC firmly on x86 manufacturing map, but first shipments will not happen until May/June of next year.

Possibly. A quick gander at Fabtech shows some scepticism about these dates, which we share. This Reuters story touts Sony as using TSMC's 45 nano stuff. In 2009.

Oddly enough, TSMC did not name the customer that will end up buying all those 45 nanometre processors, but given the fact that AMD has a deal with TSMC in place, it does not take a lot to include some common sense and figure out what are requirements for Fusion processors.

We would not be surprised if Fusion would be almost exclusively manufactured at TSMC after 1st gen parts end up on the market. Until then, Fusion will be an multi-die union of AMD, Chartered and TSMC.

There is just one small hole in this whole problem - technically, AMD 45nm CPUs will not be the very first x86 ones TSMC churned out. There is a certain fabless Taiwanese company named VIA, and it also has long-running relationship with TSMC. µ