14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that the web has finally learned just who will make AMD's upcoming accelerated processing unit, the latest rumors pointing in the direction of Globalfoundries as maker of the Krishna and Wichita.
As some may or may not remember, Advanced Micro Devices never really intended to make processors based on the 40nm process.
Originally, it planned to jump from 45nm straight to 32nm, and then 22nm, but TSMC changed its node transition plans.
As such, AMD ended up having to use TSMC's 40nm node, and since Globalfoundries didn't have a 40nm process of its own, this left the Taiwanese foundry as the sole supplier of such chips.
Now, as reports have it, AMD Senior VP Chekib Akrout said, during the company's investors day event, that the high-K gate 28nm process had been decided upon.
Since Globalfoundries is the sole maker of such semiconductors, it is quite clear that it will be its facilities that will mass-produce the upcoming chips.
For those that need a reminder, TSMC deals in last gate processes, and this basically places them out of the Sunnyvale, California-based company's list of possible manufacturing partners.
Granted, Samsung may have been a possible third option, but its own 28nm node won't be ready for late 2011, when volume production is meant to start off.
All in all, it seems more or less beyond doubt that Globalfoundires' facilities are the ones from which the Krishna and Wichita will spring forth.
As consumers know from the recent revelation that AMD made, the Krishna and Wichita are two of the APUs (accelerated processing units) that AMD will release later on.
They will have both the CPU parts and the DirectX 11 graphics on the same die, being based on the Fusion architecture. Actual production will commence during the second half of 2011.