TSMC 7nm lead times extended! AMD CPU and GPU supply affected?

[QXC]

To immediately answer the dumb bait-y question in the title: No one knows yet.

Original source: https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20190917VL203.html (Requires subscription for details)
Repost source with details: https://www.techpowerup.com/259289/tsmc-trembles-under-7-nm-product-orders-increases-delivery-lead-times-threefold-could-hit-amd-product-availability

 

Snippet from TPU:
 

Quote

TSMC has announced a threefold increase in its delivery lead times for 7 nm orders, from two months to nearly six months, which means that orders will now have to wait three times longer to be fulfilled than they once did. This means that current channel supplies and orders made after the decision from TSMC will take longer to materialize in actual silicon, which may lead to availability slumps should demand increase or maintain. AMD has its entire modern product stack built under the 7 nm process, so this could potentially affect both CPUs and GPUs from the company - and let's not forget AMD's Zen 3 and next-gen RDNA GPUs which are all being designed for the 7 nm+ process node.

This kinda sorta ties back to the 3950X Release Date Rumor Thread as that will depend greatly on AMD's die supply. From what I've personally seen and heard, it's really hard to get your hands on the 12 core 3900X as things stand, and this news isn't great for anyone hoping that would improve soon. Myself included. Maybe, just maybe, the 3900X supply shortages have been AMD stocking up on good dies ready for the 3900X launch before the end of the month. It ever so slightly reminds me of the Shortages beginning in late '99 that carried through to mid 2000... but that was before my time.

 

[Arika]

Not surprising to be honest, when you look at how many big name customers TSMC has, this was bound to happen.

[adman29]

Hopefully AMD has a bunch stockpiled in a warehouse right now; if not here's one of the reasons you don't do JIT manufacutring

[cj09beira]

guessing apple is behind this, those dam millennials

[Zodiark1593]

42 minutes ago, adman29 said:

Hopefully AMD has a bunch stockpiled in a warehouse right now; if not here's one of the reasons you don't do JIT manufacutring

Not sure if AMD has much of a choice. It is pretty implied that supplies from TSMC are quite tight, restricting supplies AMD can get ahold of and reducing their ability to build a stock. Depending on demand from their customers, AMD may find it inordinately difficult/ impossible to actually build a stock without artificially holding back their supply and/or raising prices, in which case may sway customers (particularly, the crucial data center customers) over to Intel instead.

 

Seems like AMD would have to "pick their poison", as it were. 

[williamcll]

1 hour ago, adman29 said:

Hopefully AMD has a bunch stockpiled in a warehouse right now; if not here's one of the reasons you don't do JIT manufacutring

I think the cause of this was because their stockpiles are running out.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, cj09beira said:

dam millennials

Not our fault. Most of us are soo poor we cant afford Apples product anyway. 

[Taf the Ghost]

This is about 7SoC and 7EUV. AMD won't have any products out on either of them until late next year, so it doesn't really matter. AMD also would have produced whatever they were planning to sell this year already, so that won't matter either.

[QXC]

29 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

This is about 7SoC and 7EUV. AMD won't have any products out on either of them until late next year, so it doesn't really matter. AMD also would have produced whatever they were planning to sell this year already, so that won't matter either.

Are these details in the original source link? Wouldn't surprise me if they were misinterpreted by TPU (I'm assuming if true, AMD is on some 7<high performance> line) but I couldn't view it to verify myself.

[Taf the Ghost]

20 minutes ago, QXC said:

Are these details in the original source link? Wouldn't surprise me if they were misinterpreted by TPU (I'm assuming if true, AMD is on some 7<high performance> line) but I couldn't view it to verify myself.

The original Digitimes piece is only talking about 5G and Mobile SoC demand, along with integration work. While the 7HPC node isn't at a different physical location (the node AMD and just a few others use), odds are AMD already has their production runs scheduled out for at least the next 6 months. They might increase the size of them, but that would already be scheduled well in advance. 

 

The issue is that mobile SoC sales on 7nm were pretty low, but now everyone seems to want to jump on 7EUV. After Apple's production clears through, everything mostly opens up on the node anyway. That's really all we're seeing. AMD's parts that could run into scheduling issues would be the likely move of the IODs to 7nm for the late 2020 Zen3 launch.

[rcmaehl]

The pessimistic side of me:

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

So this will be interesting though TSMC being saturated like so. But hopefully no issues. 

[porina]

11 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

odds are AMD already has their production runs scheduled out for at least the next 6 months.

Agreed. You don't make these contracts at the last minute. They would have forecast expected demand and got their slot in at TSMC. What this might impact is if they need additional capacity on top of their forecast e.g. if Zen 2 sells even better than they planned for.

[MeatFeastMan]

If the 3950x is delayed...I dare AMD to come out of it's cave, cause there's gonna be a ton of people with pitchforks at the ready. Me included. 18th September AMD, 18th September. The clock is ticking.

[Zando_]

15 minutes ago, MeatFeastMan said:

If the 3950x is delayed...I dare AMD to come out of it's cave, cause there's gonna be a ton of people with pitchforks at the ready. Me included. 18th September AMD, 18th September. The clock is ticking.

Ya realize burning AMD doesn't make TSMC magically create more dies? Same with Intel struggling with 10nm, if they could just release it when people got mad at them they'd have already done that, they can't just instantly make stuff because they ran into some unforeseen or unavoidable problem. 

But then this is all speculative anyways so the 3950X may be delivered on time without issue. 

[MeatFeastMan]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

Ya realize burning AMD doesn't make TSMC magically create more dies? Same with Intel struggling with 10nm, if they could just release it when people got mad at them they'd have already done that, they can't just instantly make stuff because they ran into some unforeseen or unavoidable problem. 

But then this is all speculative anyways so the 3950X may be delivered on time without issue. 

Well, this is more about promises being kept, rather than TSMC. It'll look really bad if they launch this late.

[Zando_]

Just now, MeatFeastMan said:

Well, this is more about promises being kept, rather than TSMC. It'll look really bad if they launch this late.

From what I'm seeing AMD said to expect a September launch, but didn't give any hard dates? 

[MeatFeastMan]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

From what I'm seeing AMD said to expect a September launch, but didn't give any hard dates? 

Yes. They have 12 days. As I said, the clock is ticking. And it isn't looking particularly great considering there hasn't been any announcement yet.

[Damascus]

1 minute ago, MeatFeastMan said:

Yes. They have 12 days. As I said, the clock is ticking. And it isn't looking particularly great considering there hasn't been any announcement yet.

Are ya going to burn noctua at the stake because they didn't release the blackout coolers in q3 2019?  AMD literally can't control this, and it wouldn't be the first time a paper launch was needed because of manufacturing issues

[QXC]

4 hours ago, MeatFeastMan said:

If the 3950x is delayed...I dare AMD to come out of it's cave, cause there's gonna be a ton of people with pitchforks at the ready. Me included. 18th September AMD, 18th September. The clock is ticking.

Translation: "If the 3950X is delayed, I'm going to be very upset!"

Delays in tech are nothing new, hell Intel's 10nm delays have been a MUCH bigger deal and they're still doing just fine (even if their CPUs suck). AMD themselves is no stranger to delaying entire product lines. The K5, K6, A64, I think Phenom was delayed at some point too.

 

17 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

The original Digitimes piece is only talking about 5G and Mobile SoC demand, along with integration work. While the 7HPC node isn't at a different physical location (the node AMD and just a few others use), odds are AMD already has their production runs scheduled out for at least the next 6 months. They might increase the size of them, but that would already be scheduled well in advance. 

 

The issue is that mobile SoC sales on 7nm were pretty low, but now everyone seems to want to jump on 7EUV. After Apple's production clears through, everything mostly opens up on the node anyway. That's really all we're seeing. AMD's parts that could run into scheduling issues would be the likely move of the IODs to 7nm for the late 2020 Zen3 launch.

You wouldn't happen to be able to post the part of the article where it refers to the specific nodes in question? I don't know what the forum rules are regarding posting info from behind paywalls.