GlobalFoundries Granted Independence, Acquires Remaining Stake from AMD

by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/4/2012 9:04:00 PM
Posted in CPUs , GlobalFoundries , AMD

When AMD originally spun off its foundry business in 2008, the resulting Foundry Company (as it was called back then) was 55.6% ATIC owned and 44.4% AMD owned. Since then the Foundry Company has been rebranded Global Foundries and has been on a march towards independence. Plans for additional fabs and the acquisition of Chartered Semiconductor both strengthened GF as a player in the foundry space. A closer relationship with ARM and its partners has also been a key element of GF's strategy.

AMD has been divesting itself from Global Foundries over the past few years and today announced that it has aquired the remaining shares of the company from AMD (approximately 14% of the company). Global Foundries is now completely independent of AMD, and AMD is now a regular partner/customer of GF's.

Print This Article 31 Comments View All Comments Post a Comment Time to deliver or go broke by Beenthere on Sunday, March 04, 2012 GloFo has their work cut out for them. They had better work smart or they will become a bootnote in PC history. Beenthere Reply So... by Ethaniel on Sunday, March 04, 2012 ... AMD "could" work with other people, right? Ethaniel Reply RE: So... by Kjella on Sunday, March 04, 2012 AMD already produces all their GPUs at TSMC and had to scrap several CPU designs because GloFo's gate first process couldn't deliver, moving them to TSMC and gate last. So the question is more if GloFo will see any of AMDs business in the future or not. Of course TSMC isn't actually a shining beacon of delivering themselves, they had to scrap their 34nm GPU process. This really is a "deliver or die" market. Kjella Reply RE: So... by Beenthere on Sunday, March 04, 2012 Actually TSMC is only supplying AMD with GPUs not APUs or CPUs - yet. It takes at least a year and up to 18 months to change AMDs current CPU/APU designs so that TSMC could produce them with gate last.

For now AMD is sticking with GloFo for their current series of CPUs and APUs. That is why GloFo had better deliver or they will lose a lot of AMD Biz, which they can't really afford to lose. Since Nov. '11 things have improved significantly at GloFo as far as ramping of 32nm HKMGF. Beenthere Reply RE: So... by mga318 on Sunday, March 04, 2012 Uhm, that's what he said. mga318 Reply RE: So... by gplnpsb on Sunday, March 04, 2012 Actually, TSMC is supplying AMD with their enormously successful Brazos APUs. Those are manufactured on TSMC's 40nm process. It did seem that the 28nm successor to brazos got cancelled, I don't know if AMD had planned to fab those at Global Foundries or at TSMC. gplnpsb Reply RE: So... by jjj on Monday, March 05, 2012 Actually,despite this not being mentioned in the article,AMD also got GloFo to waver it's exclusivity rights for some 28nm APUs:
GLOBALFOUNDRIES waived the exclusivity arrangement for AMD to manufacture certain 28nm APU products at GLOBALFOUNDRIES for a specified period.""

Overall the deal doesn't seem that good but there is little info for now. jjj Reply RE: So... by r3Dslap on Tuesday, March 06, 2012 Actually,,, r3Dslap Reply RE: So... by rocketbuddha on Monday, March 05, 2012 I think that AMD foolishly trusted GF would be up and ready with its 28nm HKMG (bulk) process by now so that it can use GF as the foundry for all its APUs and MPUs.

Instead TSMC seems to have be ready with its 28nm earlier. Krishna and Wichita was designed using 28nm GF libraries and no wonder they are cancelled. So now we have Brazos 2.0 at the same 40nm from TSMC.

Instead AMD was forced to keep its 28nm plans as a 2013 option. Even in 2013 it seems to be bulk and not SOI as Vishera the only desktop based successor to the Zambezi seems to be 32nm rather than 28nm rocketbuddha Reply RE: So... by animekenji on Monday, March 05, 2012 I think that was the idea, like when General Motors cut Delphi loose. It enabled them to buy parts from more than one source and allowed Delphi to sell parts to other car makers. Cutting GF loose from AMD is going to have similar benefits for AMD and GF. animekenji Reply Subject Comment Post Comment Please login or register to post a comment.
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