Starting in 2025, AMD plans to produce chips for high-performance computing (HPC) at TSMC’s Arizona factory (USA) and become its second customer after Apple. The move brings the United States closer to creating a complete AI hardware supply chain on its soil. The production of AMD chips using TSMC’s 5nm process technology in the United States is a key step in the development of the local semiconductor industry.
Image Source: AMD
TSMC is in talks with several companies to manufacture their chips in Arizona, with AMD likely to be the second customer, although other customers are possible. According to sources, production planning has already begun, and testing and manufacturing of AMD chips on TSMC’s 5nm process is expected next year. Last month it became known about the start of production of A16 mobile single-chip platforms for Apple at the same enterprise. New data indicates the possibility of shipping the first batches of A16 before the end of the year, which is ahead of the originally stated deadline of early 2025.
The term “5 nanometers” or N5 is the marketing designation for a family of process technologies that include N5, N5P, N4, N4P and N4X. Despite the differences, for most consumers these nuances are unimportant. It is assumed that new AMD chips will be produced using one of the N4 modifications.
Last week, a major development was the announcement of a collaboration between TSMC and Amkor related to the Made in USA initiative. The partnership includes work on advanced chip packaging technologies such as Integrated Fan-Out (InFO) and Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS). InFO technology allows chips to be more densely packed at the wafer level, and TSMC’s patented CoWoS technology plays an important role in efficiently connecting high-speed memory to GPU compute cores. This is what underlies the high performance of Nvidia and AMD AI chips.
In the near future, wafers with chips manufactured at the American TSMC factory for Apple and AMD will be sent to Taiwan for final packaging. However, that will change with the opening of Amkor’s new chip packaging facility in Arizona. In November 2023, Amkor already announced plans to build a chip packaging factory worth $2 billion. Initially, production was planned to begin within the next two to three years, but then the period was clarified to three years. Apple is expected to become the new venture’s first and largest customer.
AMD’s production of chips in Arizona is a more significant development than Apple’s A16 production, as it moves the US closer to creating a full AI supply chain on American soil. It was recently reported that production of Nvidia Blackwell GB200 servers is back on schedule, with shipments from Taiwan beginning in December, with server production ramping up in the US planned for early to mid next year.