超微推新產品線 TSMC晶圓代工
處理器大廠美商超微（AMD）今年首季全面翻新產品線，第2季起全系列加速處理器（APU）及繪圖晶片，都已全面轉進28奈米投片，其中台積電（2330）囊括了繪圖晶片及低功耗APU的28奈米代工大單，與台積電及超微合作多年的晶圓測試廠台星科（3265）同步受惠。
超微今年初揭露2013年處理器及繪圖晶片技術藍圖，並搶在今年台北國際電腦展（Computex）前量產出貨，所以，超微在台供應鏈近期接單明顯轉強，除了台積電及台星科搶下大單之外，日月光、矽品亦拿下繪圖晶片封測訂單，覆晶基板訂單則由南電及欣興分食。
超微針對主流電腦市場推出新一代Richland加速處理器，已經開始交貨給ODM/OEM廠，並採用在新一代的Ultrathin超輕薄筆電當中。該晶片採用格羅方德（GlobalFoundries）28奈米製程生產，首度支援包括人臉辨識登入（Face Login）和手勢辨識（Gesture Control）等感測功能，吸引ODM/OEM廠目光，將是今年超微在Computex的重點展示產品。
在繪圖晶片部份，超微去年底推出的針對桌上型電腦設計的28奈米Sea Islands晶片，已進入量產階段外，以筆電市場為主的28奈米Solar System晶片也開始在第2季起全面投入量產，搶在年中前大量交貨給ODM/OEM廠。
超微2013年全系列產品線已轉進28奈米，台積電成為大贏家，獨吞繪圖晶片及Temash及Kabini等兩款處理器的代工大單，隨著投片量在本季明顯拉高，台星科、日月光、矽品等封測廠亦雨露均霑，第2季接單看增。
AMD quietly confirms 28nm Kabini, Temash chips are being built at TSMC
- By Joel Hruska on January 14, 2013 at 12:52 pm
The company has stayed quiet on this point, even after paying GlobalFoundries hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to manufacture 28nm products at TSMC and publicly targeting a 1H 2013 ship date for its new Brazos replacement. At CES last week, the company privately let slip that yes, Kabini and Temash are being built at TSMC, with the former expected to ship in Q2 of this year.
Here’s the new roadmap — there have been some changes since we last looked at things. Temash has been pulled forward and is now shown as shipping alongside Kabini. That’s AMD’s second tablet SoC; it’ll go up against the next-generation quad-core Atom as well as chips from Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Samsung’s big.LITTLE Exynos Octa.
Kabini will take over AMD’s A4 and A6 brands, which confirms our suspicion that the new chip is strong enough to close the gap with mainstream notebooks. Before now, the gap between netbook-class solutions and full notebooks has been significant — even Brazos, which was 20-25% faster than Atom, wasn’t powerful enough to qualify as a real notebook processor.
So why has AMD played this so coy? Our best guess is that the company is trying to stay on good terms with GlobalFoundries, which can’t be thrilled that its missed out on much of the business AMD was originally supposed to send its way. Under the original terms of the agreement between AMD and GF, Sunnyvale would have moved all its manufacturing to its foundry spin-off by 28nm, including CPUs and GPUs. Obviously that hasn’t happened, but AMD’s long-term commitment to shifting its production to GF is unchanged. The $1B+ that it paid GF in fees and penalties this year (not to mention the ownership stake it gave up) only secured temporary exceptions to the original agreement.
As for Kaveri dropping in the latter half of the year, I’m still dubious. If our sources are accurate, Kaveri couldn’t have taped out before the tail end of 2012. Bringing the chip to market by Q4 of 2013 implies a very fast ramp. We’re not holding our breath, but it’d be great if AMD could bring Kaveri out before Broadwell drops in 2014.
