Published in PC Hardware

AMD is now TSMC's number three

by on17 December 2021


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AMD' is now TSMC's third best customer, behind Apple and Mediatek. 

Apple is still TSMC's No.1 customer,  AMD's position ahead of Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm enables the company to negotiate better business terms, work closer with the contract maker of chips, and have an influence on development of next-generation nodes.

Top TSMC Customers 

  2021
Apple 25.93%
MediaTek 5.80%
AMD 4.36%
Qualcomm 3.90%
Broadcom 3.77%
Nvidia 2.83%
Sony 2.54%
Marvell 1.39%
STMicroelectronics 1.38
Analog Devices 1.06
Intel 0.84

According to DigiTimes, AMD began to shift production of its most advanced chips to TSMC in 2018 after GlobalFoundries pulled the plug on its leading-edge process technologies.

TSMC makes all of AMD's advanced CPUs, GPUs, and SoCs using N7 and N6 process technologies, which is why the chip developer's contribution to the foundry's revenue is growing along with its rising sales. TSMC's other customers like Nvidia and Qualcomm have shifted many of their orders to Samsung Foundry. 

AMD's share in TSMC's balance sheet is poised to grow as the company increases adoption of the foundry's advanced packaging technologies as well as embraces more expensive N5 for its upcoming Zen 4-based processors. Furthermore, once AMD absorbs Xilinx, it will be a considerably larger semiconductor company and need more of TSMC's services.

Nvidia, which was traditionally one of TSMC's main customers that even co-designed a custom node for its GPUs several years ago, now accounts for 2.83 per cent of the foundry's revenue. Shifting of client Ampere GPU orders to Samsung Foundry put Nvidia significantly behind Broadcom and Qualcomm as far as TSMC's revenue share is concerned.  

TSMC makes a variety of components for Intel, many of them use lagging nodes, whereas compute tiles for Intel's upcoming Ponte Vecchio GPU are not exactly high-volume products. 

DigiTimes estimated that Intel's input to TSMC's revenue as of December, 2021, was around 0.84 per cent but once Intel begins to use TSMC's N3 technology (which is a rumor for now) in 2022 ~ 2023, its contribution may increase dramatically.

 
 
 
 
Last modified on 17 December 2021
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