Samsung has entered into a deal with AMD to manufacture its next-generation semiconductor and graphics chip, Korea's ET News reports.
According to the deal, Samsung Electronics shall manufacture AMD's "Zen" CPU chip and "Greenland" GPU chip from second quarter of this year. The project shall be undertaken by Samsung's LSI Foundry Business Department, in co-ordination with Global Foundry.
AMD is a recent addition to Samsung's distinguished customer list which includes Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm.
Maximum PC reports that Greenland shall be produced using 14nm FinFET LPP processing. This shall make it faster and power efficient compared to 28 nm Fiji GPU currently sold in markets.
Once Greenland is in production, Samsung and Global Foundry shall collaborate in producing AMD's Zen CPU. Zen CPU is slated to launch on October 2016. Rumors are abuzz that Zen CPU shall try to achieve better performance per core, instead of focusing on a higher core count. It shall be manufactured using 14nm FinFET LPP processing technology.
Earlier, Taiwan's TSMC was in charge of producing AMD's GPUs. Their contract was cancelled due to issues pertaining to yield and unstable supplies. AMD turned to Samsung and Global Foundry after they initiated 14 nm processing contracts in 2015. According to industry reports, both AMD and Nvidia are likely to skip 20 nm processing altogether from this year.
According to Tech Times, AMD has been lagging behind Intel and Nvidia in sales. It has laid off 5 percent of its work force recently. With recent contract awarded to Samsung and Global Foundry, there are hopes that AMD shall find itself back into competition.