There have been many rumours that AMD might switch to Samsung for next 3nm process nodes or even 5nm as well, however, as Digitimes has recently reported that seems untrue according to the Taiwan industry. These kind of rumours were obvious as AMD is short of supply for various products, thanks to TSMC’s supply shortage.
The industry observers in Taiwan say AMD is very unlikely to make such a move. When all of these are flagged as rumours, AMD’s final decision will depend on its bet in its upcoming products including CPUs, GPUs and APUs.
The main reason why AMD is not switching from TSMC to Samsung Electronics, despite its ongoing tight supply of processors is due mainly to ABF substrate shortages rather than insufficient capacity support from its current foundry partner.
As AMD CEO, Dr Lisa Su previously mentioned that it is not the problem of the foundry but a global shortage that should continue till H1 2021. Even giants like NVIDIA are hard to keep up with the immense demand; however, AMD needs 7nm nodes for various products that have launched almost all at once.
However, AMD’s main concern could be on the 5nm process node as major players like Apple are counting on TSMC. On the other hand, Intel is rumoured to be in talks with the Taiwanese foundry for outsourcing some advanced nodes as well, so, AMD’s ultimate decision will totally depend on TSMC’s situation until the first half of 2021.
