14 DAY TRIAL // In addition to formally launching the Pitcairn Radeon HD 7800 graphics adapters (7850 and 7870), Advanced Micro Devices made a second announcement yesterday (March 04, 2012).
Globalfoundries has had some trouble when it comes to making chips for AMD, particularly those on the 32nm and 28nm manufacturing process technologies.
Back in 2011, AMD even revised its deal with the foundry, through which it paid it only for the wafers with working chips, rather than for all of them.
Now, a new agreement has been reached, an “amendment” to the Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA).
There is a so-called “negotiated wafer price mechanism” in place, one that will last throughout 2012.
Also, AMD's additional 2012 quarterly payment obligations, the ones specified in the 2011 amendment, will be waived (suspended).
In a similar manner, the two will no longer be subject to the exclusivity arrangement previously set in place.
This makes sense, since AMD has also allowed Globalfoundries to claim its remaining ownership stake in the foundry business.
"The amended wafer supply agreement demonstrates that AMD and GLOBALFOUNDRIES remain committed as long-term strategic business partners," said Rory Read, chief executive officer, AMD.
"We made significant progress last year to strengthen our relationship, and we're pleased with GLOBALFOUNDRIES' recent performance in meeting our delivery requirements across our product line."
Since Globalfoundries has willingly relinquished its exclusivity arrangement with the Sunnyvale chipmaker, the latter has agreed to pay it a hefty sum of money ($425 million / 322 million Euro) over the March-October period.
All in all, the companies seem to be getting along better than last year, even though the CPU, GPU and APU maker continues to be the one spending the money in this relationship. Hopefully, for both of their sakes, the 14nm node won't prove too troublesome. Renegotiating these agreements can get tedious and old really fast.