State-of-the-art fabrication plant will have surplus capacityAMD will be opening a brand-new, state-of-the-art fabrication plant in Dresden, German in late 2006/early 2007. The new plant will allow AMD to make use of 65 nm processing on 300 mm silicon wafers. Currently, AMD does not believe that they will require 100% of the new fab's capacity to manufacture Athlon 64s/Opterons, and for that reason, they are considering the manufacturing of chipsets for their partners.
"It's entirely possible that some of that [excess] capacity can be part of a partnership with a chip-set manufacturer," Ruiz said. In any event, AMD definitely plans to deepen relationships with its chip-set partners in coming years, which could help the company produce better chips, he said.
AMD makes a limited number of chip sets to support its launch of new processors, but the vast majority of the chip sets for its products are made by third-party vendors, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst with Mercury Research in Cave Creek, Arizona. In the past, AMD simply hasn't had the capacity to build its own chip sets, nor has it had the desire to enter a low-margin market that requires research and development expenditures, he said.
The key idea here is that AMD will not be manufacturing their own chipsets, but rather using their new fab to manufacture the chipsets of other companies. With 300 mm wafers, AMD should be able to increase their production margins quite a bit, quite possibly leading to cheaper Athlon 64s/Opterons. That'll be a good day.
Article Link: AMD to Consider Building Chip Sets for Partners
