Recently, the mostly-reliable Donamimhaber website suggested there was a strong rumour that AMD will be moving the manufacturing of its future Bulldozer-based CPUs from GlobalFoundries over to TSMC.
Whilst only a rumour, this certainly wouldn't come as a surprise as AMD has been sending new contracts TSMC's way since last year - the low-end E- and C-series APUs are already fabbed by the Taiwanese company - and many of AMD's products, such as the Radeon series graphics cards, have a long historical link with TSMC. Adding to this are further rumours that GlobalFoundries may have had a role to play in both the low-yield and poor performance of AMD's new Bulldozer line.
This writer suggests that although this move is certainly very possible, it would not be immediate. TSMC abandoned some time ago its ability to mass produce at 32nm in favour for 28nm mass production. AMD's favoured High-K Metal Gate transistor technology, meanwhile, is still in its infancy at TSMC, which would make high-yield production a challenge.
Certainly one to keep an eye on, folks.
