News AMD 1Q19 Earnings Report

[coercitiv]

It was meant to be farcical, but I guess I missed by a mile.

I have this old fashioned idea in my head that posters have an unspoken duty to help inform other (silent) readers, so I try to make my sarcasm sour enough to detect and my answers as documented and clear as possible.

Some fun is lost in the process. Like tears in the rain. But we needn't stop fabs over this.

 

[NostaSeronx]

Why halt the lines?

It won't be making revenue targets; AMD to GF obligation: <$1.2B in 2019, <$800M in 2020, <$530M in 2021. This will be reflected if IBM moves to Samsung for POWER9+ and POWER10.

Is GloFlo losing money on 14/12 nm?

The revenue contribution for 14nm/12nm is the highest because of AMD and IBM. With a reduced production portfolio the 14/12-nm nodes will be underutilized and not contributing to revenue.

AFAIK most companies have fabs with products on old nodes still being produced.
What happens to the GloFlo old fab?
A massive investment to upgrade or are they mothballing fabs and closing up shop?

For Malta, GlobalFoundries plans to adopt more mature/mainstream processes to replace the leading edge processes.

You really think GF will stop making any finfet nodes barely a year after Zen 2 is released which has embedded and server products reliant on them being made? Pretty sure if GF tried that, AMD would have a get out of WSA free card. They'd be driving away their biggest customer. The only way I could see this happening is if AMD agreed with them to move to an FDX node for the IO chip but I doubt AMD does this without some incentive from GF and I doubt it happens less than a year after Zen 2 is released.

"Mubadala reported that through the first six months of 2018, GlobalFoundries had $3.03 billion in revenue, compared to $2.83 billion in the first six months of 2017, an increase of seven percent.
GlobalFoundries still lost money — $613 million — during the first half of 2018. And that is up from the same period during 2017 when it lost $580 million."

If GlobalFoundries can't make net profit, then yes GlobalFoundries will stop making FinFETs. In this case, 14LPP production will be moved from Malta at GlobalFoundries to Austin/Giheung at Samsung.

The seventh amendment extends on the bold and arrowed: The Sixth Amendment also provides the Company a limited waiver with rights to contract with -> another wafer foundry with respect to certain products in the 14nm <- and 7nm technology nodes and gives the Company greater flexibility in sourcing foundry services across its product portfolio.

So, 14LPP/12LP products can be fluidly moved between GlobalFoundries and Samsung.

If AMD can't provide products that are not on 14LPP/12LP, then Mubadala is getting some money.

To diverge from the above;
imho, Ares, Zeus, Poseidon is going to wreck Zen. If TSMC has to choose ARM designs or x86 designs. They are going to choose ARM.