14 DAY TRIAL // An AMD official has recently stated that the company is expected to tape out two 28nm chips this quarter, but refrained himself from revealing any additional information about the products he was referring to.
AMD's 28 plans for 2011 and early 2012 include the launch of the desktop and mobile versions of the Southern Islands GPUs as well as the introduction of the Krishna and Wichita APUs.
“We expect several 28nm tape-outs during the current quarter. We balance our loading according to risk performance and price.
“But we also said that there is, of course, a natural incentive for us at this point to work closely with Globalfoundries, and that is, of course, something we continue to do," said Thomas Seifert, interim chief executive officer of AMD and chief financial officer.
Previous reports suggested that AMD had already taped out the first Southern Islands GPUs and the Wichita APU, so the company official could be referring to Krishna and some other product from the company's upcoming lineup.
In electronics design, the “tape out” term is used to describe the final result of the design cycle of a chip and means that the integrated circuit can be sent to the foundry for manufacturing the first physical samples.
These will then go through a number of spins as the design is further refined to eliminate any potential flaws that made their way into the integrated circuit.
This is usually a pretty lengthy process, so the first batches of the chips AMD plans to tape out later in this quarter aren't expected to reach the market until Q1 2012.
At this time, we don't know where AMD will start 28nm test manufacturing, but Globalfoundries is a strong contender to the title. (via Xbit Labs)