According to a new report from DigiTimes, Samsung Foundry was able to secure orders from AMD to manufacture only those APUs and GPUs based on the 14nm fabrication process. The South Korean conglomerate failed to grab orders from AMD to manufacture the company’s more advanced chips based on 5nm, 6nm, and 7nm fabrication processes, such as Zen 3, Zen 3+, and Zen 4.
Reportedly, the new chips from AMD will be manufactured by TSMC and GlobalFoundries, at least till 2025, and the two semiconductor manufacturers will be AMD’s major partners for the next three years. Samsung has the technology to manufacture not only 5nm but also 4nm and even 3nm semiconductors.
However, the 4nm and 5nm chips manufactured by Samsung are considered to be less efficient than those produced by TSMC. So, that could be one of the reasons why AMD has chosen TSMC (and GF) to manufacture its new chips. However, the exact details of why Samsung didn’t get the order are still unknown.
Rough times ahead for Samsung Foundry
Samsung is going through a rough time at the moment. The company’s operating profit hit an eight-year low in Q4 2022, and Samsung expects higher profit from its semiconductor business in 2023 to be half of that in 2022. The operating profit from smartphone sales has also reduced considerably and is expected to fall even further due to the rising prices of components. Losing AMD’s order for new chips worsens things even further.
According to analysts, however, the situation of the semiconductor market could improve drastically in 2024, and that’s when Samsung could get back on track. Until then, the only good news for Samsung Foundry is that it could manufacture some of Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipsets.
