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Foundries to lose AMD’s graphics business
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With AMD going fabless with the spin-off of its semiconductor manufacturing arm into a newly formed foundry enterprise, its current foundry partners, TSMC and UMC will lose its graphic chips business to the ‘Foundry Company.’
The Foundry Company, majority owned by the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), a technology focused investment arm of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, has already begun the tool installing at Fab 38, according to an AMD spokesperson.
The fab will also employ bulk CMOS process technology, garnered from AMD’s collaboration with IBM to be able to fabricate its graphic chips. AMD uses SOI wafers for its microprocessors. Fab 38 will also be used for additional SOI capacity.
It is not clear when the graphic chips production will move from the Taiwan foundries to Dresden, Germany. However, the migration is expected to be gradual and take at least 12 months to execute, according to industry sources.