AMD announces move to 32nm
DAAMIT HAS officially announced its plans for the move to 32nm scheduled for late next year. These involve expanding and investing in the Dresden facilities, says EETimes Europe.
At a Munich conference, Udo Nothelfer, corporate veep/bunny-herder in charge of wafer ops at Fab 36, started laying the foundation for the business unit he will be heading under ATIC administration.
According to Nothelfer, Fab 36 and Fab 38 (formerly known as Fab 30), will become property of The Foundry Company come January 2009, and when wafer production has fully scaled, together they will churn out 50,000 wafers amonth – which is quite impressive. ATI graphics chips will also be built in Dresden, but these will come end of 2009, when the company begins the transition to 32nm. In order to do this, Dresden is buying 32nm bulk production tech to add to its 45nm SOI sauce and future 32nm SOI, says EETimes.
You might think 12 months is a short stint for a node (45nm in this case) but if DAAMIT is to get back in the game, it needs to have those 32nm ready by late 2009. Until then, AMD will be all about sweating out the economic climate and leveraging those sweet low-power CPUs.
It seems 32nm is taking the utmost importance down at DAAMIT HQ as it's the first opportunity the company has to get on a level playing field with its rivals. Intel is planning to intro 32nm Nehalem shrinks (Tick) by late 2009 and the 32nm Sandy Bridge processors (Tocks) – developed in Israel, further down the road, while Nvidia will depend on TSMC to achieve this.
In fact, with TFC's Dresden building both CPUs and GPUs, it’ll be biting deep in to Far Eastern foundries’ revenues – the same foundries that are manufacturing 55nm GPUs and future 40nm GPUs. We’ve mailed a couple of ATI’s partners about this and we’ll update as the replies arrive.
TSMC, for one, has announced 32nm high-k dielectric manufacturing for Q4 2009, which puts it ahead of the pack and is the most likely source for AMD/ATIC/TFC’s tech purchase.
L'Inq
EETimes
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"TSMC, for one, has announced 32nm high-k dielectric manufacturing for Q4 2009, which puts it ahead of the pack and is the most likely source for AMD/ATIC/TFC’s tech purchase."

Uhhh, why would AMD be purchasing anything tech process wise from TSMC?!

I think they are likely to purchase their FAB (tech process) equipment from the likes of Applied Materials, ASML Holding, Axcelis Technologies, Intevac, Novellus Systems, Lam Research, TEL, Aviza Technology Inc., KLA-Tencor, Ulvac, Varian Semiconductor, DAS GmbH Dresden Germany, Kornic Systems Corporation Korea before they trouble TSMC with FAB/Process equipment/technology requests....
Sort of like the noise a donkey makes. This makes me do it.
Didn't they already make AMD dies prior to Fab36 (45nm) on some level, along with dies for their ATI cards since even before the 2900 series? Not positive about the CPU's...but ya, TSMC makes ATI/AMD cores.

No real surprise if TSMC makes the Fusion processor. If TSMC announces they are 32nm capable, AMD doesn't "burden" them with tools and request.

If I make widgets capable of what you're aiming for, I welcome your contracts for those widgets and smile at requests for more. That makes money and is the purpose of companies like this.
Those tech purchases would be of chips, not manufacturing equipment. The article does mention at the end the Asians making CPU's and GPU's.

That AMD is focusing on moving to 32nm is really, really good news. For so long they have relegated themselves to playing catchup.

I see this as their only long term hope for becoming competitive again.
Hey, whats happening with the NY stat fab?
I thought they said they were going to be outsourcing all their chip manufacturing, and I wonder whatever happened to that AM3 socket.....
Hasn't happened yet, in fact, Intel's lead has, if anything, increased over the past 2-4 process generations.

All the money in the world won't bring them to 32nm SOI in 12 months, but I guess there's always a next round of hopes and high expectations ...
They will start production at 32nm, but they will be the first at 22nm and 15nm.
A $200 billion a year industry is NOT A GAME. You dufuses (Otellini and ex-Ruiz) are ruining the rest of our economy with this FIRE SALE NONSENSE.

Why do you media people treat this like some joke when billions of dollars are being burned up by a maniacal MONOPOLIST that spits in even their partners' faces.

Leave MS alone and deal with Intel. They actually own stuff that isn't IP.