The news that AMD will use TSMC to make its Fusion chips will no doubt come as a bit of shock to Mojy Chian, a senior vice president at Global Foundries (GloFo).
Chian told TechEye last week that it has already created samples of AMD's Fusion chip, using 32 nanometre SOI process technology, high k metal gate, four CPU cores and 11 copper metal layers - this is codenamed Llano.
But, according to today's Digitimes, AMD is using a bulk 40 nanometre process at TSMC and other backend services, quoting industry sources.
This is the slide Chian showed at last week's International Electronics Forum, in Dresden, Germany.
GloFo, of course, is the spun-off fab arm of AMD. And while AMD still has some financial interest in Global Foundries, that's getting less all the time. And Global Foundries and TSMC are bitter rivals. [Corrected from earlier]
Meanwhile, word reaches us through the grapevine that Intel's Larrabee is not as dead as a dodo after all, and chip guys in Oregon are frantically working away to see if they can make something of it after all.
So, ConFusion? Nope, it's actually logic. ;)
When the shaders from their 28 nm Global Foundries produced GPUs will be paired with Bobcat cores, perhaps then they will produce the resulting Fusion chips at Global Foundries too. However, that would mean having to redesign the Bobcat cores for Global Foundries' 28 nm bulk as well. A bit of a bumpy ride for AMD, it seems.
Lu
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