AMD not Immune to Chip Shortage Woes

Posted 05/18/2010 at 10:46am | by Paul Lilly

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Much ado has been made over the chip shortage that apparently affected Nvidia's Fermi architecture, but they're not the only ones dealing with a tight supply. According to DigiTimes, supply for AMD chipsets is also running tight. So much so, that AMD is letting foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) tap into its 55nm capacity reserved for chipsets to help ease current GPU shortages.

You probably noticed that AMD's high-end HD 5870 and HD 5970 videocards were pretty tough to come by in the second half of 2009, which DigiTimes says was the result of low yields on TSMC's 40nm process. As a result, graphics card partners placed more orders for 55nm Radeon HD 4000 series parts than they otherwise would have.

TSMC's recent 40nm yields have been improving at a steady clip, which should help ease the tight supply of both 40nm and 55nm parts, but part of this is being offset by high demand, DigiTimes says. As it stands, AMD's chipset shortage will likely last throughout the third quarter, and possibly into the fourth.