AMD won't dump TSMC for Globalfoundries

DESPITE SUFFERING shortages due to TSMC's 40nm recent yield problems, AMD says it will continue to work with the Taiwanese chipmaker, along with its own fab spin-off, Globalfoundries.

"We've had a 10 year relationship with TSMC, they are a primary manufacturing partner," Rick Bergman, AMD's senior vice president of platforms told the INQ.

Last month, AMD admitted that its short supply of ATI Radeon HD 4770 GPUs - RV740 - was due to TSMC's disappointing manufacturing yield on 40nm process technology. In June, the Taiwan fab's 40nm production yields stood at less than 25 per cent, a figure far lower than any chip designer would like, especially AMD.

The problem apparently was so bad that TSMC had to offer AMD preferential quotes in compensation. So, why, we asked Bergman, was AMD being so forgiving?

"New technology isn't easy," Bergman told the INQ, adding "you get rough spots on occasion, and TSMC has hit a rough spot."

Indeed, but rough spots cost money, we noted. Bergman agreed but told us relationship problems between a chip designer and chip maker were not exactly a one way street. "Sometimes we [AMD] haven't delivered on our commitments in terms of [the number of] wafers they expect us to use and so on," he said.

"We went into this with our eyes wide open on what it would take to build [40nm] products and ship them right on schedule," said Bergman. "Have we shipped as many? No, but is that problem going to go away? Yes."

Bergman said he was "happy" with what TSMC had done for AMD and how the fab had supported Daamit at 40nm.

So, no plans to chuck in the Taiwanese towel and offload all chip making labour to Glofo then? Bergman shook his head and told us, "we want multiple sources, we need both TSMC and Globalfoundries to be successful." µ