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AMD processor outsourcing, what effect on quality?

S

Simpson5774

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Feb 1, 2005
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I know their has been alot of talk about AMD outsourcing some of their chip manufacturing and I am wondering what kind of effect would this have on the quality of chips compared to something AMD would make.

If AMD is better than intel in 1 way, it would have to be quality control, AMD continually is making newer, more efficient and higher clocking steppings (more so than intel), usually every week or 3 their is a new stepping, some weeks are better than others, some have cold bugs where others don't, some can run at lower voltages than others, but as time goes by, their product gets more robust.

How is it going to work between TSMC or chartered and AMD?, they are going to be producing AMD designs, will these 3rd parties be the ones making these kind of adjustments on their chips, or is AMD going to have to produce a new model every time they want something tweaked?

I honestly don't see how this move helps AMD, they can produce more volume, but that wasn't their problem, their problem is paying for continuous upgrades in their existing tech, which gets exponentially higher when you draw down the scale.
 
I doubt there will be much difference in quality. It seems more of a move to cut back on costs more than anything.
 
WiLLiSTER said:
I doubt there will be much difference in quality. It seems more of a move to cut back on costs more than anything.
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you know just about every company out there is facing the same thing, cost, cost for this cost for that, and really what it comes down to in a competitive field is who has the better deal at the better price, best bang for your buck. and i think AMD and Intel both know this, both are going to try to make as much money as possible in any way possible. even if they are already making a profit.
 
jjager85 said:
you know just about every company out there is facing the same thing, cost, cost for this cost for that, and really what it comes down to in a competitive field is who has the better deal at the better price, best bang for your buck. and i think AMD and Intel both know this, both are going to try to make as much money as possible in any way possible. even if they are already making a profit.
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that is partially true. but it seems to me that more people care about performance, though that may only be b/c most people here are enthusiasts and don't mind spending a bit more on their hobby. i would say that your statement is almost always true w/ regards to the regular consumer (i.e. ppl who buy from big box stores/dell)
 
It's not like quality could get any worse...

TSMC makes very complex and generally fine ICs for the likes of nVidia and ATI. Shouldn't be an issue. Probably better than AMD doing it.
 
TSMC will never make AMD CPU's. They already make all of there GPU's and Consumer chips... Considering that TSMC is more or less permanantly stuck on a bulk process, and cant afford to adopt APM, the likelyhood that they will even be capable of producing AMD's CPU's is so small as to be more or less impossible.... I suspect that this information has more to do with the announcement that AMD is spinning off it's consumer electronics department...

As far as quality goes, AMD does have a deal with Chartered to outsource some production, and in that case chartered is using AMD's exact same fabrication process with the exact same equipment and the exact same software. Quality from a chartered fab is identical to quality from an AMD fab.
 
You're telling me that all the steppings and revisions are AMD's side is a good thing? It is a good thing, it's fixing bugs and shit that wasn't suppose to be there, phenom for example, you're making it seem as if they're releasing revisions for positive performance reasons, like adding additional instructions cause they want their customers to feel nicer about their purchase.

Bafangoo!!!
 
TSMC is currently working on the testing procedures for a SOI manufacturing process for AMD Fusion, and they do work for ATI AND Nvidia which tells me they are a great company.
 
RangerSVT said:
You're telling me that all the steppings and revisions are AMD's side is a good thing? It is a good thing, it's fixing bugs and shit that wasn't suppose to be there, phenom for example, you're making it seem as if they're releasing revisions for positive performance reasons, like adding additional instructions cause they want their customers to feel nicer about their purchase.

Bafangoo!!!
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YES. Fixing problems and continually improving your existing product line without major redesigning(that costs alot of money) is always in your company's and customers best interest, in either the product's performance or in reliability/stability. Intel has no legs to stand on in the bugs/errata dept. either Ranger, that dog won't hunt, I've seen their errata sheets over the years, they have just as much if not more bugs per release.(and some of them just as critical or worse than the former Barcelona TLB bug, of which I might add, Intel had the same problem with Conroe at one time) It's a industry wide phenomeon, something that comes with every new revision/process/release and not exclusive to AMD, every company wants an errata free processor as possible. To eliminate the entire staggering amount of errata in a brand new alpha version processor through it's refining process to it's release stepping version of it is statistically impossible. At best a company's microprocessor engineers can only hope to eliminate the most critical and important errata within the time frame and budget they are allowed, anything else non-critical or happens only in worst case scenarios are usually chalked up as "errata" and documented as the processor is moved up to a release stepping after proper testing. At the least, in my observations AMD seems to be more willing and quicker to respond to some of the worse errata of their processors than I've seen Intel react to in the past.

Come AMD's "K11", aka "Bulldozer", you can expect to see continual improvements and upgrades of it's core since it will be a modular design in nature and basically a continuing work in progress. To me, that is a great thing and will require shorter engineering cycles, shorter time to market while continually improving and upgrading it's performance and correcting any errata. AMD engineers will be able to upgrade, fix and improve certain modular parts of the processor as the need arises, or quickly with each nm node shrink.

So the bottom line is this, both companies deal with errata and revisions, it's a cold, hard, fact of microprocessor design. Therefore, feel free to drop the red herring argument RangerSVT and deal with some facts of reality.

bfellow said:
TSMC is currently working on the testing procedures for a SOI manufacturing process for AMD Fusion, and they do work for ATI AND Nvidia which tells me they are a great company.
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Agreed. If I was AMD, there is only one other outsourcing FAB I'd want making my processors besides Chartered and that's TSMC, they do ALOT of work for many semi-conductor firms.
 
If TSMC does end up making AMD CPUs (as I have tread they will) and can keep up good quality then we could really win as consumers. The quality will be there and AMD will be bleeding less money which might in turn allow the price to drop on their CPUs. I don't know if that's a wise decision since they are in such heavy debt, but it would make their processors more appealing to some people to have them cheaper than they already are.
 
p_o_s_pc said:
maybe people that went over to Intel will be coming back to AMD.
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I did. I went to Intel last summer and returned to AMD a couple of months ago. My reason was kind of petty: I like working with AMD fans a lot more than the 775 ones of Intel. That design on the 775s is so annoying IMO.
 
Therefore, feel free to drop the red herring argument RangerSVT and deal with some facts of reality.
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Well stated. However you really shouldn't feed the trolls..........even those so obviously linguistically challenged. They tend to form spittle at the corners of their mouths as they bleat 'Super PI, Super PI':D

A link germain to this thread:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37423/118/
 
RiverRicer said:
Well stated. However you really shouldn't feed the trolls..........even those so obviously linguistically challenged. They tend to form spittle at the corners of their mouths as they bleat 'Super PI, Super PI':D

A link germain to this thread:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37423/118/
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Theo clearly doesnt know his ass from a hole in the ground. TSMC beginning work on an SOI process exists clearly for the GPU market as the article states. Theo claiming that this is somehow going to mean that TSMC will also start manufacturing AMD's CPUs is bullshit. It has no basis in reality.

As the article clearly states this is being done for the benefit of the GPU market. As a matter off fact I would be willing to bet my balls that this is exactly what "asset smart" really means.
 
They are basing it off the same information and source as Theo. In addition if you follow the source links provided (you have to be registered) it clearly states that TSMC will not be making CPU's, but that AMD has made a long term commitment to TSMC to continue manufacturing GPU's. It also states that AMD will be personally working with TSMC to help them make the transition to SOI.

I am of the opinion that TSMC will be manufacturing SOI GPGPU's initially for the Fusion chip. It may eventually transition to manufacturing SOI GPU's for the discreet market as well. So far that is what all of the data indicates. Period. Nobody has provided any indication of TSMC manufacturing SOI CPU's, but it is pretty clear that they will be manufacturing GPGPU's for Fusion. As I said I believe that this is exactly what asset smart really is.
 
RangerSVT said:
You're telling me that all the steppings and revisions are AMD's side is a good thing? It is a good thing, it's fixing bugs and shit that wasn't suppose to be there, phenom for example, you're making it seem as if they're releasing revisions for positive performance reasons, like adding additional instructions cause they want their customers to feel nicer about their purchase.

Bafangoo!!!
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LOL, n00b.
 
AMD isnt exactly known for putting out high quality chips these days.
If they can retool a few fabs by outsourcing production..... well why not
 
Whoa, look at all the insults.

Well, after being insulted , how about I return the favor?

Enjoy your low-performing chips , while I'll enjoy my high performance chip :)

Thanky.

:)
 
Machines make the processors and not humans these days :). Probably won't be any quality difference at all.
 
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