For the past several years, AMD has been relying on two companies to manufacture its chips: GlobalFoundries, its former manufacturing arm that was spun off in 2008, and TSMC. According to a report by ZDNet, AMD may soon add a third partner to that list: Samsung.
ZDNet's story is actually about an Apple chip deal, but it names AMD as one of Samsung's manufacturing clients:
Samsung is expected to start producing application processors (APs) for clients such as Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD, using its 14-nanometre process around the end of the year.
Last we heard, GlobalFoundries was going to license Samsung's 14-nm FinFET fab process, and AMD was voicing its excitement about the prospect. This is the first time I've seen anything about AMD tapping Samsung as a foundry partner directly, though.
I've asked AMD to chime in on this. Stay tuned for a response. (Thanks to TR reader Carl for the link.)