Companies literally go bankrupt when they run out of cash. They have enough cash for another 4-6 quarters at similar burn rate now. They will more than likely be able to limp along until Zen launches because of this.
I wonder where does AMD take all this money from. It is obviously not from profits, since their net result for the last 15 years is a hefty 8.5 billion loss.
They don't make money, they haven't made money and there is highly unlikely for them to make any money in the future.
Which brings me to the question - why even bother? I see no point in producing inferior chips at a perpetual loss. Seems like the sole purpose behind AMD's existence is to hide Intel's monopoly and dominance on the market.
And then what? The smartphone and tablet market isn't very lucrative for the chipmakers, especially when using licenced cores, and there aren't really other markets for ARM CPUs (yet?). You just can't install normal Windows and applications on ARM processors, the "normal" CPU market is what AMD needs to get into.
I doubt it. The graphics division pretty much kept AMD alive for some years now through products like APUs and console chips. That would be the end for the company.
I've always wondered why the wafers are big circles. Aren't they wasting chips that way? I see several chips being cut off. I'm assuming those chips are unusable am I correct?
Wafers are cut from a huge and pure silicon crystal, which is made by putting a seed crystal into molten silicon and then pulling it out of the melt while rotating it. In this process, the ingot get's round, but it can't be done in a different way.
And yes, the partly made chips are all unusable of course. Oh, and generally Die quality increases towards the middle of the wafer, so the best chips are made from that part.
Correct, however the over all amount lost is small so long as the die size is small relative to the wafer. I would guess circles are used because that's what is easiest for growing the raw silicon ingots. These are huge, single-crystal cylinders of extremely pure silicon with almost zero imperfections in the crystal lattice. They are grown by inductively heating silicon in a crucible, and then pulling a seed crystal upwards from the molten silicon. The molten silicon expands outward from a single seed crystal equally in all directions, thus the circular shape. And, if the pull rate is set right you will get flat sides too. (I am going from memory, not an expert in this. Look up Czoralski method for more info)
I'm not 100% sure why they don't saw off the extra material on the sides, but I guess this would be kind of slow or could be pretty damaging to the crystal structure itself. Also during manufacturing the circular shape has no discontinuities that would lend themselves to starting a crack / fracture. The corners of the square might vary easily spread cracks
Yes, there is some wastage produced by this process. It's a common occurrence in chip manufacturing. On another note, there seems to be a more efficient process being researched where the wafers can be hexagonal in shape rather than circular. you can read more on that here: http://semiaccurate.com/2015/05/18/disco-makes-hex...
why not cut the wafer square after the ignot is made (before fab starts).. that way your not wasting copper, tungsten, etc... on the edges of the circle.
Because you'd be lopping off large chunks of silicon which can be used to make more chips. If it was cost effective to cut the wafers beforehand they'd be doing it already.
Draw a square inside that circular silicon wafer and you'll see just how much are they'd lose by cutting it to be a square. Right now they are losing a few chips on the edges. With a square wafer they'd lose a couple full rows around the sides.
Not sure if anyone has pointed it out to you yet or not, but that's an article about creating hexagonal dies, not hexagonal wafers. It's still currently infeasible to create Si wafers that are anything other than circular, but putting hexagonal dies on a circular wafer substantially reduces edge waste compared to square/rectangular statically sized dies like most current manufacturing.
ATMP for those who are wondering stands for "Assembly, Test, Mark and Pack"
I'm guessing they take pure wafers, test them, package them, and mark them as a6, a8, a10 etc.... Most fabless companies have a 3rd party, or even the fab themselves do all of this.
Really Anandtech? If it wasn't leased, would you have written "AMD's owned Lone Star Campus"? No, you wouldn't. Because in the end it doesn't have anything to do with anything whether or not the building is leased or not, but you are trying to push a narrative: what is it exactly? Hmmmm
It was news when they sold it and leased it back. Ryan is tying those events together to show a trend of asset selloff. That is the purely factual narrative. They are selling parts of the company to stay in business.
So NVME(or on-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification) is contributing their own facilities and employees as well... Sad days for AHCI. ;-)
"NVME will be contributing their own facilities and employees as well, with the complete joint venture set to have 5,800 employees spread over five facilities."
This sounds like AMD doing the equivalent of going to the pawn shop to get cash to cover rent. So sad how desperate they seem to be getting to stay afloat.
I am self employed, an automation and controls consultant. Sometimes, cashflow gets rough. When I had employees (I don't now), there were times when cashflow got really rough. You do what's necessary to stay afloat until the next good gig. In AMD's case it's the next good product launch. If the next gig doesn't materialize or the next good product isn't as well received as you hope, well you just hold on to your butt...
AMD has good graphics. If they can do better on the CPU side they might just have a porfolio good enough to stay relevant. Meanwhile, it's all creative cash flow... It doesn't mean that their aren't very brilliant and dedicated folks working there.. just that they are cash starved to the point that it makes execution difficult. I hope ZEN is good.... good to see the handicapped bulldozer core (2 and 1, you know of which I speak) go away.
" I hope ZEN is good.... good to see the handicapped bulldozer core (2 and 1, you know of which I speak) go away."
Zen looks to be a big improvement and from what Lisa Su said on the CC on time at 14nm. This could be the first time Intel and AMD are on the same node in a long time so there is alot of drivers here that could have us conclude that it will indeed be competitive. I dont think it has to be better than an intel offer to get alot of love from OEM's as they are getting gauged at this point. Zen is going into servers and HEDT first and that is where the $$ are so 2017 can be a huge turnaround year for them. This is all aside of the new custom wins that are going to drive 1billion of new revenue starting in 2nd half of 2016. This company can rise from the ashes if things go right. IMHO
Looks like AMD is pretty much coasting on their existing CPU products for now until they can finally get Zen out the door. Zen is pretty much AMD's last hope. It seems they're putting all of their remaining resources into it, as I haven't seen any other new CPU products besides a few minor rehashes of the same Bulldozer cores.
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nandnandnand - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
AMD Gets to Exist For a Couple More YearsKjella - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
At their current losses, two quarters is more like it.Jtaylor1986 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
Companies literally go bankrupt when they run out of cash. They have enough cash for another 4-6 quarters at similar burn rate now. They will more than likely be able to limp along until Zen launches because of this.ddriver - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
I wonder where does AMD take all this money from. It is obviously not from profits, since their net result for the last 15 years is a hefty 8.5 billion loss.They don't make money, they haven't made money and there is highly unlikely for them to make any money in the future.
Which brings me to the question - why even bother? I see no point in producing inferior chips at a perpetual loss. Seems like the sole purpose behind AMD's existence is to hide Intel's monopoly and dominance on the market.
TristanSDX - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
Next spin-off: Graphics Dvisionmichael2k - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
I think their CPU division is next. They'll just license ARM CPUs.Dobson123 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
And then what? The smartphone and tablet market isn't very lucrative for the chipmakers, especially when using licenced cores, and there aren't really other markets for ARM CPUs (yet?). You just can't install normal Windows and applications on ARM processors, the "normal" CPU market is what AMD needs to get into.izmanq - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
But can install Linux and Linux Apps, right ? Raspberry pi and it's kind are ARM processorsJtaylor1986 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
If Zen doesn't have at least reasonable success there isn't a CPU division to speak of.Dobson123 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
I doubt it. The graphics division pretty much kept AMD alive for some years now through products like APUs and console chips. That would be the end for the company.ppi - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
50% JV should work for both tight integration w/ AMD CPUs and for the JV partner.JV would also give their GPUs more credibility regarding continued drivers support (which you need, unlike for CPUs ).
Dobson123 - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
But with whom?ppi - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
Samsung, MediaTek, possibly Apple or IBM (HPC)SunLord - Saturday, October 17, 2015 - link
Avago using Intel's moneybabadivad - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
I've always wondered why the wafers are big circles. Aren't they wasting chips that way? I see several chips being cut off. I'm assuming those chips are unusable am I correct?Dobson123 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
Wafers are cut from a huge and pure silicon crystal, which is made by putting a seed crystal into molten silicon and then pulling it out of the melt while rotating it. In this process, the ingot get's round, but it can't be done in a different way.Dobson123 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
And yes, the partly made chips are all unusable of course. Oh, and generally Die quality increases towards the middle of the wafer, so the best chips are made from that part.babadivad - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
Thanks for the prompt response dobson, evencox, and leoblaze.Wolfpup - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
Yeah, interesting stuff!stephenbrooks - Saturday, October 17, 2015 - link
The non-square dies at the edge are Semprons ;)evancox10 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
Correct, however the over all amount lost is small so long as the die size is small relative to the wafer. I would guess circles are used because that's what is easiest for growing the raw silicon ingots. These are huge, single-crystal cylinders of extremely pure silicon with almost zero imperfections in the crystal lattice. They are grown by inductively heating silicon in a crucible, and then pulling a seed crystal upwards from the molten silicon. The molten silicon expands outward from a single seed crystal equally in all directions, thus the circular shape. And, if the pull rate is set right you will get flat sides too. (I am going from memory, not an expert in this. Look up Czoralski method for more info)I'm not 100% sure why they don't saw off the extra material on the sides, but I guess this would be kind of slow or could be pretty damaging to the crystal structure itself. Also during manufacturing the circular shape has no discontinuities that would lend themselves to starting a crack / fracture. The corners of the square might vary easily spread cracks
leoblaze9 - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
Yes, there is some wastage produced by this process. It's a common occurrence in chip manufacturing.On another note, there seems to be a more efficient process being researched where the wafers can be hexagonal in shape rather than circular. you can read more on that here:
http://semiaccurate.com/2015/05/18/disco-makes-hex...
Morawka - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
why not cut the wafer square after the ignot is made (before fab starts).. that way your not wasting copper, tungsten, etc... on the edges of the circle.Gigaplex - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
Because you'd be lopping off large chunks of silicon which can be used to make more chips. If it was cost effective to cut the wafers beforehand they'd be doing it already.Nagorak - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
Draw a square inside that circular silicon wafer and you'll see just how much are they'd lose by cutting it to be a square. Right now they are losing a few chips on the edges. With a square wafer they'd lose a couple full rows around the sides.Omoronovo - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
Not sure if anyone has pointed it out to you yet or not, but that's an article about creating hexagonal dies, not hexagonal wafers. It's still currently infeasible to create Si wafers that are anything other than circular, but putting hexagonal dies on a circular wafer substantially reduces edge waste compared to square/rectangular statically sized dies like most current manufacturing.Morawka - Thursday, October 15, 2015 - link
ATMP for those who are wondering stands for "Assembly, Test, Mark and Pack"I'm guessing they take pure wafers, test them, package them, and mark them as a6, a8, a10 etc....
Most fabless companies have a 3rd party, or even the fab themselves do all of this.
atlantico - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
"AMD's Leased Lone Star Campus"Really Anandtech? If it wasn't leased, would you have written "AMD's owned Lone Star Campus"? No, you wouldn't. Because in the end it doesn't have anything to do with anything whether or not the building is leased or not, but you are trying to push a narrative: what is it exactly? Hmmmm
jamyryals - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
It was news when they sold it and leased it back. Ryan is tying those events together to show a trend of asset selloff. That is the purely factual narrative. They are selling parts of the company to stay in business.Nintendo Maniac 64 - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
Any idea if Nvidia also doesn't do ATMP in-house? Seeing how they're also fabless, it makes for an easy comparison as a reference point.Ryan Smith - Saturday, October 17, 2015 - link
NVIDIA uses a third party, which is typical for fabless companies.jimjamjamie - Sunday, October 18, 2015 - link
Perhaps in a few years this AMD joint venture will start assembling NVIDIA chips!irresistible - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
So NVME(or on-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification) is contributing their own facilities and employees as well...Sad days for AHCI.
;-)
RU482 - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
"spin off"??? more like "spiral off"Lunyone - Friday, October 16, 2015 - link
"NVME will be contributing their own facilities and employees as well, with the complete joint venture set to have 5,800 employees spread over five facilities."Is that a typo? I think you meant to say NFME??
Ryan Smith - Saturday, October 17, 2015 - link
Yikes. Yes, it is. Too much time working on SSDs. Thanks!Jumangi - Saturday, October 17, 2015 - link
This sounds like AMD doing the equivalent of going to the pawn shop to get cash to cover rent. So sad how desperate they seem to be getting to stay afloat.HardwareDufus - Saturday, October 17, 2015 - link
I am self employed, an automation and controls consultant. Sometimes, cashflow gets rough. When I had employees (I don't now), there were times when cashflow got really rough. You do what's necessary to stay afloat until the next good gig. In AMD's case it's the next good product launch. If the next gig doesn't materialize or the next good product isn't as well received as you hope, well you just hold on to your butt...AMD has good graphics. If they can do better on the CPU side they might just have a porfolio good enough to stay relevant. Meanwhile, it's all creative cash flow... It doesn't mean that their aren't very brilliant and dedicated folks working there.. just that they are cash starved to the point that it makes execution difficult. I hope ZEN is good.... good to see the handicapped bulldozer core (2 and 1, you know of which I speak) go away.
bugsy1339 - Thursday, October 29, 2015 - link
" I hope ZEN is good.... good to see the handicapped bulldozer core (2 and 1, you know of which I speak) go away."Zen looks to be a big improvement and from what Lisa Su said on the CC on time at 14nm. This could be the first time Intel and AMD are on the same node in a long time so there is alot of drivers here that could have us conclude that it will indeed be competitive. I dont think it has to be better than an intel offer to get alot of love from OEM's as they are getting gauged at this point. Zen is going into servers and HEDT first and that is where the $$ are so 2017 can be a huge turnaround year for them. This is all aside of the new custom wins that are going to drive 1billion of new revenue starting in 2nd half of 2016. This company can rise from the ashes if things go right. IMHO
ThreeDee912 - Saturday, October 17, 2015 - link
Looks like AMD is pretty much coasting on their existing CPU products for now until they can finally get Zen out the door. Zen is pretty much AMD's last hope. It seems they're putting all of their remaining resources into it, as I haven't seen any other new CPU products besides a few minor rehashes of the same Bulldozer cores.gw74 - Friday, October 23, 2015 - link
How's Roy Taylor doing?