News AMD Might Use Samsung's 4nm Node for Chromebook CPUs: J.P. Morgan

[Admin]

AMD may start working with Samsung on low-end CPUs for its notebooks.

AMD Might Use Samsung's 4nm Node for Chromebook CPUs: J.P. Morgan : Read more

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

I have trouble seeing it, especially if Qualcomm keeps improving like they say and Windows 11 SE or even Windows 11 proper runs decent on $250-$350 laptops, Chromebooks will have a tough time competing.

 

[ddcservices]

For the low end of the market, going with Samsung or even Global Foundries would make some sense, not needing to worry about high high volume, and save TSMC capacity for the important stuff. At the low end, people don't overclock, and don't even worry too much about how fast a computer is, as long as it works and isn't horribly slow.

 

[wifiburger]

For the low end of the market, going with Samsung or even Global Foundries would make some sense, not needing to worry about high high volume, and save TSMC capacity for the important stuff. At the low end, people don't overclock, and don't even worry too much about how fast a computer is, as long as it works and isn't horribly slow.

global foundries is trash

IO dies are crap for freq and power usage on Ryzen

 

[wifiburger]

that will happen if you don't secure orders on TSMC first

I think 5nm,3nm are already secured by everybody else but AMD. This is on AMD, they are really too slow for CPU releases.

 

[w_barath]

Lisa Su mentioned during the Zen 3 launch that she was open to working with partners on ARM-based projects. Then they announced that they were doing GPUs for Samsung ARM SOCs.

Given that, I suspect that they are going to be releasing an ARM-based Chromebook SOC using some Samsung IP blocks along with the GPU IP blocks they are developing in partnership with Samsung. And when you think about it, that makes a lot of sense, since AMD has a lot of experience with doing laptop mobile GPUs. So it makes sense that they do a laptop SOC first, ie H1 2022 while they're on the road to developing a good phone GPU.

So yeah, I think the assumption that they're re-working Zen for Samsung's 4nm process is wildly incorrect.

 

[Giroro]

"Also, keeping in mind that the Chromebook market isn't growing, it's unclear how financially viable the project would be ."

Well, 2020 actually was an extremely good year for chromebooks.

 

[renz496]

For the low end of the market, going with Samsung or even Global Foundries would make some sense, not needing to worry about high high volume, and save TSMC capacity for the important stuff. At the low end, people don't overclock, and don't even worry too much about how fast a computer is, as long as it works and isn't horribly slow.

i don't think GF even have 7nm process. let alone 5nm. so even if you want to put your low end device to be manufactured by GF it is something they cannot do.

 

[renz496]

that will happen if you don't secure orders on TSMC first

I think 5nm,3nm are already secured by everybody else but AMD. This is on AMD, they are really too slow for CPU releases.

AMD have some capacity at TSMC. but most likely not enough so they need to look for other foundries. and the competition to get TSMC capacity most likely high as well. want more capacity? then you probably need to bid the price against others as well.

 

[w_barath]

i don't think GF even have 7nm process. let alone 5nm. so even if you want to put your low end device to be manufactured by GF it is something they cannot do.

Correct, IBM was suing GloFo in relatively recent news for being 2 years late to 14nm and abandoning 10nm when those nodes had been contracted as part of the deal of IBM selling their fabs to GloFo. GloFo in turn said that IBM had colluded against them by purchasing wafer starts elsewhere, which starved them of the resources to do the work, so they felt their non-performance of what had become a frustrated contract was perfectly legal. I don't remember how or whether this has been settled, but I know for sure GloFo's best node is 14nm.