Because of the strategy shift,
GF will cut 5% of its staff as well
as renegotiate its WSA and IP-
related deals with AMD and
IBM.
So much for that 10-yr. deal for GloFo to manufacture IBM's chips. Should be plenty of legal action coming soon. . .
4 replies (most recent on top)
2syq. Read the following story (Eg on the bottom of the page you linked to. It’s the following story). It appears that GF will be able to supply the Z and Power chips easily via the 14 NM technology. 10 NM on the other hand will have to move to either Samsung, or TSCM. My guess is Samsung. The real issue here is “cost”. In the follow on story, it looks like IBM can afford the Enterprise chips from GF due to low volumes and high margins on those products, where as the scaleout/HPC chips are, costing way too much. It looks like perhaps 2-3x too much vs TSCM or Samsung’s price. Again we’ll see how this plays out, but IBM is definitely shopping for a new supplier due to price and 10 NM technology
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13277/globalfoundries-stops-all-7nm-development
Looks like AMD also dumped their 7nm efforts and got TSMC to do it, per El Reg's coverage --
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/27/globalfoundries_scuttles_7nm/
The question boils down to who will IBM contract with to build P10??? Perhaps GF can get to 10 NM but that is an open question. The other issue will Be the manufacturer will have to be USA owned, as IBM wants all of the Govt business that it can get. (just remember the national lab’s win with P9). Will IBM bring P10 back in house (unlikely due to low volumes), or outsource to a custom builder promising IBM’s labs technical innovation. Otherwise Power is looking at a bleak future HW wise. IBM could certainly IP the whole enchilada out and just pocket the IP revenue. I believe China has already licensed some of the Power Architecture via the “open Power consortium”