JPMorgan Chase: AMD may use Samsung's 4nm process to produce Chromebook CPUs

According to a new report from JPMorgan Chase cited by tomshardware, a media outlet that has long been concerned about the electronic consumer CPU field, on December 8, AMD is likely to choose Samsung as its foundry to build entry-level 4nm processors for Chromebooks. JPMorgan Chase also speculated that AMD may also use Samsung to manufacture future GPU production.

"Our research suggests that AMD is likely to outsource Chromebook CPUs to Samsung Foundry for 4nm (likely in volume production by the end of 2022)," wrote Gokul Hariharan, an analyst at JPMorgan, in a client note shared by @MarcTheShark83. "Given the decline in market demand, TSMC's capacity allocated to the Chromebook project may be limited."

AMD was almost completely dependent on GlobalFoundries at first, and later on TSMC, for two reasons: First, AMD had a wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries that prevented it from having a broad choice of TSMC and other foundries. Second, AMD controlled its development costs by reusing IP blocks customized for specific chip technologies, greatly improving its actual process level.

Although AMD's profit margins are now at an all-time high, the company remains very conservative in adopting new manufacturing processes. This is because using familiar IP not only reduces costs but also helps improve yields.

If AMD goes ahead with the plan and even uses Samsung foundry's nodes for some of its products, it will greatly change the way it designs and manufactures products. If AMD wants to adopt Samsung foundry's 4LPP (second-generation 4nm process) to produce Chromebook APUs, it will need to redesign its CPU and GPU IP, which is quite expensive in the 4nm process. In addition, considering that the Chromebook market is not growing, it is unclear how financially viable the project is. Analysts believe that AMD may also use Samsung foundries to produce some of its GPUs, but did not elaborate.

“Additionally, we believe AMD is likely to evaluate some projects (likely for GPUs) using Samsung 3nm technology in 2023 or 2024, but the vast majority of its core platforms (CPUs for servers, mobile, and desktops) are likely to choose TSMC N3 technology,” the report wrote.

At the same time, JPMorgan believes that AMD will continue its rather conservative approach to implementing new manufacturing technologies and will not be among the first companies to start using cutting-edge nodes. Analysts expect AMD to only use TSMC's N3 technology (actually possibly N3E) in mass-produced products in 2024.

“Note that AMD’s N3 devices will likely only be mass produced in 2024, as its N5 projects (Genoa and Zen 4 desktop variants) will not be available until the second half of 2022,” the report reads.