flashmozzg:

Lol. Intel is making CPUs on AMDs (former) fabs. Not sure if it's ironic, but it's definitely something.

and hiring ex amd staff 😀

Personally I think it's smart and I think many of us could see this coming since Intel's fabs can't meet demand. Intel should use every fab out there to get as much product made. If I were Intel I would keep any decent CPU IP completely in house. However using a third party for non-CPU products like chipsets, USB chips, network controllers, integrated circuits, and flash memory would all help make room for capacity.

Kaarme:

Having your own fab can be extremely expensive if you fail at getting a new, smaller node to produce results and if you can't keep the whole facility running at a decent level of capacity. The same as a hotel needing enough rooms occupied all the time to be profitable. Apparently GlobalFoundries was too afraid of trying to invest in 7nm to risk it. If they had failed, losing potentially bilions, it might have been the end for GF. Intel is so dirty rich that the partial failure with the 10nm node hasn't even really affected their bottom line. TSMC is also quite rich traditionally and went forward. Furthermore, everything worked perfectly for them.

AMD unloaded GloFlo to finance (Ryzen and Vega) development and restructuring AMD. AMD never had the economies of scale Intel has and nanometer scale node development is big science with a big budget. TSMC had invested over twice their net value to develop 7nm and had the help of the Republic of China (Taipei), along with Apple, AMD, Qualcomm and a few others to fund the development. Intel, in addition to a differing definition of "nanometer", has such good engineering that it lead the marketing folks (in charge atm and for the last 7 years +) to become fanboys in extreme, which has lead them to believe the hype, but not the numbers that the engineers deliver. unlike Star Trek, you cannot just order up a new phaser for season two, you have to do the work. Intel does have all the resources it has ever needed, but more complacency than it deserves thanks to bad above-the-pay-grade decisions of the folks in charge. the "10nm" product (i'm expecting a name that node revision lol) actually looks exciting. but Intel is getting pegged with that "power pig", not-quite-up-to-date load that AMD has had to deal with (previously) in GPUS.

tunejunky:

AMD unloaded GloFlo to finance (Ryzen and Vega) development and restructuring AMD. AMD never had the economies of scale Intel has and nanometer scale node development is big science with a big budget.

AMD let go of GlobalFoundries in 2009. In 2009, 7nm was still a distant dream. 32nm (28nm) was the big thing happening back then. Thus, I wouldn't say it's of much relevance to talk about AMD in this context. Sure, GF needed AMD to keep going even after becoming independent, but they were still separate companies. They have the unholy contract that is now shackling AMD after GF refused to stay in the race, so it's nothing but regrets for AMD at this point.

Kaarme:

AMD let go of GlobalFoundries in 2009. In 2009, 7nm was still a distant dream. 32nm (28nm) was the big thing happening back then. Thus, I wouldn't say it's of much relevance to talk about AMD in this context. Sure, GF needed AMD to keep going even after becoming independent, but they were still separate companies. They have the unholy contract that is now shackling AMD after GF refused to stay in the race, so it's nothing but regrets for AMD at this point.

7nm was a distant dream, but not uArch including infinity fabric and chiplets. that is what the sale of GF brought specifically to AMD, and why they sold it.

tunejunky:

7nm was a distant dream, but not uArch including infinity fabric and chiplets. that is what the sale of GF brought specifically to AMD, and why they sold it.

I think the acquisition of ATI and the global financial crisis were more of a factor to that. On the whole though, AMD was never really able to afford fabs, and was done primarily due to the personality of Sanders more than anything else. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/the-rise-and-fall-of-amd-how-an-underdog-stuck-it-to-intel/

As Raza tells the story today, his boss insisted on building a fab in Dresden, Germany, over Raza's objections. (That fab, which still operates today as part of AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries, was completed in the spring of 2000.) "The trouble in the entire economic model was that AMD did not have enough capital to be able to fund fabs the way they were funding fabs," Raza said. "The point at which I had my final conflict was that [Sanders] started the process of building a new fab with borrowed money prematurely. We didn't need a fab for at least another year. If we had done it a year later, we would have accumulated enough profits to afford the fab in Germany. He laid the foundation for a fundamentally inefficient capital structure that AMD never recovered from. I told him: don't do it. I put the [purchase orders] on hold. He didn't tell me and accelerated the entire process." Both Raza and Barton recalled, independently of one another, one of Sanders' mantras: "Real men have fabs." Raza called this comment "simultaneously a sexist remark and the most stupid thing you can say," and he saw the fab decision as one of Sanders' "significant acts of irresponsibility." After he quit, Raza never spoke to Sanders again.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/amd-on-ropes-from-the-top-of-the-mountain-to-the-deepest-valleys/

Despite technical successes, AMD's financial situation had become precarious. Processor unit sales were falling, and margins on most chips dropped quickly after 2000. AMD also had problems with producing too much inventory; in the second half of 2002, AMD actually had "to limit shipments and to accept receipt of product returns from certain customers," it announced, because the chips it made weren't selling fast enough. The company had a net loss of $61 million in 2001, $1.3 billion in 2002, and $274 million in 2003. What was sucking away the company's money? It was those darned fabs, just as Raza had feared. In the company's 2001 10-K, AMD estimated, "construction and facilitation costs of Dresden Fab 30 will be approximately $2.3 billion when the facility is fully equipped by the end of 2003." There was also a $410 million to AMD Saxony, the joint venture and wholly owned subsidiary that managed the Dresden fab. By the following year, AMD upped its estimated costs to fund Dresden to $2.5 billion and added that by the end of 2001, it had invested $1.8 billion. The estimated costs continued to rise, as per the 2003 10-K: "We currently estimate that the construction and facilitation costs of Fab 30 will be $2.6 billion when it is fully equipped by the end of 2005. As of December 29, 2002, we had invested $2.1 billion in AMD Saxony." That same year, AMD plowed ahead with a new Dresden fab ("Fab 36"), investing $440 million into it by the end of the year. The money for these huge investments all relied on AMD's ability to sell chips, and AMD's ability to sell chips was made easier by its competitive edge over Intel. Unluckily for AMD, Intel didn't take this challenge lying down.