AMD CTO Mark Papermaster says that leaving processor manufacturing aside and exiting GlobalFoundries has been a great decision that has allowed them to focus on chip development and not think about manufacturing.
One of the co-founders of AMD, Jerry Sanders, in 2009 came to the fore for commenting that 'real men have fabs (factories)', which was intended to be a mockery or joke about designers who do not have factories or laboratories for the development of processors. Some years later, AMD would drop silicon chip manufacturing, a manufacture that was carried out with a substantial investment by the Abu Dhabi government through a state-owned company called the Technology Investment Company (ATIC).
ATIC was renamed GlobalFoundries or GloFo, as it is also known. The company in those years achieved important alliances in the semiconductor market, with strategies and associations with heavyweights of the industry, such as the acquisition of IBM factories, which is at the forefront with a development sub-process in the 10nm field. This caused that it had important partners such as TSMC and Samsung during the first moments, which caused the development of a new factory for AMD processors in upstate New York, in the United States.
After a while, AMD stopped being part of GlobalFoundries. Speaking at the Merrill Lynch Global Technology and Investment Conference, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster said that setting aside AMD's manufacturing of chips has boosted the company's design and development of processors. Production has therefore ceased to be a problem for AMD, focusing on manufacturing contracts, which allow it to offer more variety of products. Chip designers are no longer limited by having a factory within the company, which allows to order from external manufacturers, to optimize the chip nodes, according to Papermaster. 14nm FinFETs have brought a new level of standardization within GlobalFoundries.
Source: T PU
Nice review!
Of course, it was such a good decision that it left them half a decade in 32 nanometers, at the time it was a terrible decision now thanks to the Smartphone the semiconductor plants began to take seriously improving the lithographs so now it does not matter, otherwise, they would end up go to 28 or 22 by the time Intel would roll out 7
The lithography of smartphone chips has a trick, because it is not measured from pin to pin, only a part is measured
I think I know what you mean, you mean that they only talk about the transistor's nanometers when there are other components that may be larger in there or you mean because in a Soc they only talk about the lithography of the CPU (although I think that at being a Soc they make it all at once so I don't think that's what I have invented) assuming it is the first thing they have always done so you know and it is one of the things that Intel improves in its lithography reviews, for example the 14 nanometers of Intel right now have them so polished that more transistors fit into the same space as Samsung with its 10nm because Intel has reduced the nanometers, gave figures but I don't remember, of conductors and other components to reduce the space between transistor and transistor, apart from correcting electrical leaks to gain efficiency and produce less heat, it was also the reason in its day that the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus (or was it the 6S? I don't remember) performed better than those with the fa processor manufactured by TSMC at 16nm than those who carried it from 14nm manufactured by Samsung
It is complex to explain and I have it pending. Basically imagine a square, which we divide into three parts, one at 75% of its base, another at 5% of the previous line and there is a third space with the rest. Well, if we measure the 5% piece of the total length of the square, it will be reduced, but really the square is the whole set, not just the 5% piece. I do not know if I explained well?
I am not going to deceive you, as you have exemplified it is not the simplest to understand
I know, it is not easy to understand in general and requires an in-depth explanation, as soon as I can, I do it.
These from amd is burning their company and they are able to tell you that the smoke is only your imagination. I count they are having a lot of problems to supply any of their products.