- The AMD CEO indicated that the chips made in the American TSMC factories will be more expensive
- Lisa his says that they could be 5% to 20% more expensive than the chips produced in Taiwan
- His argue that the cost is worthwhile in terms of diversifying the supply chain
The AMD CEO has admitted that the company’s chips will be a bit more expensive when they occur in TSMC factories in the United States (unlike Taiwan).
Bloomberg reports that it will be more expensive to obtain chips from the new TSMC plant in Arizona than its Taiwan factories. TSMC is the chips manufacturer that AMD uses to manufacture most of its processors and GPU, and AMD will start receiving chips from the Arizona plant before the end of 2025).
In an AI event, the Lisa CEO said that American chips will be “more than 5% but less than 20%” more expensive compared to the “similar” parts produced in Taiwan. The executive director also observed that yields at the US plant are comparable to TSMC’s Taiwanese facilities. (Performance is the percentage of chips that make the rating be used in a finished product, not all silicon parts, and chips in that category are often reused for lower level hardware).
In an interview with Bloomberg that followed the event, his argued that any additional expense was worthwhile in terms of diversifying where AMD is subcontracting its production. The executive director said: “We have to consider resilience in the supply chain. We learned that in the pandemic.”
His also stressed that the demand for AI chips, wherever they occur, goes anywhere and remains massive, which is not news for anyone, of course.
ANALYSIS: They are still the first days for TSMC US
While the yields can be similar (or almost tell us), what their does not mention is that the most advanced TSMC processes are exclusive to their production facilities in Taiwan. Arizona only reaches the N4 node, which is 4 Nm, while the vanguard production process for TSMC is now 2 nm.
Eventually, however, the plan is to manufacture those most advanced products in the United States (after all, Arizona investment is huge, but for now, this is simply to add diversity, as its.
Even so, all the pieces of that diversity puzzles are not yet in their place, at least according to recent reports, which observe that AMD still has to send some chips made in the United States to Taiwan to finish (if they need an advanced packaging applied).
The plan is that this happens in the US. UU. Eventually, but for now, there is apparently this clumsy and little practical solution in its place as part of the hurry to get more chips from the door (to meet AI’s demand, which is, as mentioned, huge).
That could be one of the reasons why costs can be informed, along with potentially higher costs to be based on the US. UU. First (such as labor, perhaps).
The estimate of its is quite wide here, and a price jump from 5% to 20% is a wide gulf. The first seems relatively trivial, the second represents a much less tasty walk: slapped 20% on the cost of a typical Ryzen battle horse CPU would remain $ 50 at the top, or there (passing through the Ryzen 9600X MSRP, which is true that it is selling for much cheaper).
Once, then this scenario cannot boil to that result: there are many more factors to consider here, including that the estimate of its is quite vague, but the upper end of the scale provided for the potential increase in costs is something worrying, sure.
As is the fact that this is not just a rumor floating from an anonymous source somewhere in the supply chain, but comes from the CEO.
