Samsung's contract manufacturing plant has been struggling recently, and its difficulties in the 3nm process are well-known, which may result in the company missing out on billions of dollars in orders from companies such as Qualcomm and Nvidia.
In addition, the slowdown in demand for its traditional manufacturing processes has forced Samsung to shut down some production lines to reduce costs. AMD is expected to adopt Samsung's fourth generation 4nm process node (SF4X) in the near future, but the company has reportedly decided to abandon it.
The reason why AMD abandoned the transaction is still unclear.
Samsung's OEM began mass producing chips using the SF4X process in March of this year. Samsung has been producing 4nm chips since 2021 and continuously upgrading the process technology. The latest version of the 4nm process adopts backend wiring technology, which can reduce manufacturing costs and improve chip performance.
According to reports, AMD originally planned to use Samsung SF4X technology to manufacture its server CPU I/O chips, but TSMC's 4nm production capacity was insufficient to meet AMD's needs. Samsung may be a more cost-effective choice, as it is well known that Samsung engages in fierce price competition with TSMC to win customers.
It is currently unclear what specific changes have occurred, but a new report states that AMD has decided to no longer use Samsung's SF4X process to produce these chips. Perhaps it is to obtain TSMC's production capacity quota, or perhaps it is to reach a more favorable agreement with Samsung, but in any case, this will only exacerbate the challenges for Samsung's contract factories.
