AMD is having a few of its newest Ryzen 9000-series desktop CPUs made at TSMC’s new fab in Arizona. So claims Taipei, Taiwan-based journalist Tim Cuplan. It was reported final 12 months that AMD was planning on having some high-performance CPUs made at TSMC’s Arizona amenities. Now these CPUs have been recognized as the most recent Ryzen 9000 fashions and they’re mentioned to already be in manufacturing.
If true, that is a powerful win for TSMC’s new US fab. It was solely August final 12 months that AMD launched the Ryzen 9000, together with the Ryzen 7 9700X, utilizing 4nm silicon for the chip’s CPUs made by TSMC’s Taiwan factories, aslo often known as the TSMC N4 node. So, shifting a few of that manufacturing to the Arizona fab so quickly definitely seems like a vote of confidence within the facility.
However, the broader context for this information is sort of sophisticated. TSMC is on file as saying that chips in its Arizona fab value extra to make than equal merchandise in is factories in Taiwan. It additionally says that it plans to cost extra for US-made chips as a consequence.
Moreover, AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs are chiplet designs. While it appears AMD is now having some 8-core CPU dies made in Arizona, the package deal additionally include a 6nm I/O die housing the reminiscence controller and different performance.
That die, as we perceive it, remains to be made in Taiwan. TSMC does have an older fab in Washington state. But that facility at finest produces chips on the 16nm node.
Indeed, there are additional parts within the package deal after which the package deal itself to contemplate. It’s not clear the place all the objects are produced. So, the mere reality of Ryzen 9000 CPU dies being made within the US would not robotically into an all-American product, even when the CPU cores themselves could have been each designed and manufactured within the USA.
As issues normal, TSMC has three new Arizona fabs both already in manufacturing or being constructed. The first, FAB 21-1, produces 4nm chips reportedly together with the AMD Ryzen 9000 and Apple’s A16 and it already up and working. FAB 21-2 will up the ante to 3nm or N3 chips, the likes of which embrace Intel’s Lunar Lake laptop computer CPU and are presently solely made by TSMC in Taiwan, whereas FAB 21-3 will ultimately make the transfer to 2nm.
For now, you possibly can’t truly purchase any units with TSMC-made 2nm or N2 silicon. Indeed, TSMC nonetheless plans to order its cutting-edge know-how for its home Taiwanese vegetation. So, N2 chips made in Arizona will come on-line a while after comparable silicon is obtainable from Taiwan.
That mentioned, AMD does not have a tendency to make use of the very newest nodes for its chips. The new Ryzen 9000 was rolled out on N4 regardless of TSMC having been in manufacturing with N3 for a number of years and even AMD’s new RDNA 4 GPUs which had been virtually however not fairly introduced at CES are nonetheless on N4.
The identical goes for Nvidia’s newest Blackwell RTX 50 graphics chips. Those are on TSMC N4, too. So, the truth that TSMC’s US fabs are being stored a step behind Taiwan does not imply we can’t see new CPUs and GPUs which can be made within the US.
Then once more, the likes of AMD and Nvidia should play off the advantages of getting chips made within the US, which could embrace avoiding tariffs, towards larger native manufacturing prices. It’ll be fascinating to come back again in 5 years or so and see which chips, precisely, find yourself being made within the US.
