Ryzen 4000 Notebooks Delayed By At Least Two Months Due To Shortage of Processors (heise.de) 66
New submitter spth writes: Demand for notebooks with AMD Ryzen processors is far higher than supply. Following a reddit post by a Schenker (German computer manufacturer) employee about Ryzen 4800H shortages, Heinz Heise (Heinz Heise is the publisher of some leading German computer magazines, such as c't and iX) journalists investigated and found that the shortage apparently affects all Ryzen 4000 mobile APUs, and according to AMD is an industry-wide phenomena. Apparently, a large part of TSMC production capacity is needed for production of the APUs of future PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, and cannot be used to compensate for increased Ryzen 4000 demand.
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Re:No, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, years ago Intel was the leader and AMD followed... now with the Ryzen chips, Intel is about to become the cheaper yet inferior choice.
Re: No, really? (Score:2)
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The first Intel Apples came with either Core Duo or Core 2 Duo. Yes, some of those, namely the Core Duos were 32-bit only. Even if you have a Core 2 Duo Apple, which should be 64-bit, you can be limited because the firmware is 32-bit and can't boot a 64-bit system without workarounds... but the CPU itself could run 64-bit. (Here
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Intel is no different.
We are nearing the phone Oct release's for Apple and Samsung with only a couple of fab's left all mobile proc and memory is going to them.
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It's also cheaper, which doesn't match Apple's marketing strategy of "more expensive means higher status".
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The part is cheaper, but that doesn't mean Apple has to make the machine cheaper. Which matches Apple's marketing strategy of "convince them that this is worth a lot more money than a non-Apple-branded PC, then fleece the suckers".
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I was referencing the fact that AMD has been actively marketing itself as cheaper alternative to Intel for several decades at this point.
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I was referencing the fact that AMD has been actively marketing itself as cheaper alternative to Intel for several decades at this point.
Irrelevant since a) most people have no idea who AMD is and b) AMD parts are now faster than Intel parts, so they can be marketed on the basis of superiority.
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I'm in general agreement on most people not knowing most things in the world.
And AMD has been faster and more reliable than Intel parts back in the day of K7 vs P4 as well. AMD still marketed them as being cheaper.
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Make them grow to produce overwhelming majority of personal computers on the planet? Yeah, that would be also against Apple's "we're only for the rich, beautiful and successful" marketing angle.
Re:No, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure if Apple had ordered large quantities they would have delivered, just like they delivered CPUs and GPUs for the various game consoles that use them.
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Not really. IBM and Motorola both failed Apple, which is why Apple went to IBM, then IBM failed to deliver the G5s Apple wanted in quantity, so Apple went with Intel. Intel has spare fab capacity and was able to build the custom variant Apple wanted quite easily. IBM and Motorola ended up not caring about the loss of millions of processors. Well, that
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I remember people asking for years why Apple didn't switch from Intel to AMD. That's why.
-jcr
Implying that a company that used to be a distant second to Intel and manufacturing their own equipment focused on CPUs, is somehow remotely relevant to a fierce competitor in the CPU market with an integrated GPU business and spun-off out sourced manufacturing to a 3rd party who is now the world leader in semiconductor manufacture is even remotely relevant?
Comparing any opinion of any semiconductor manufacturer from years back to now is absolutely asinine.
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This is a compound issue. Intel's production limitations means that there has been a shortage of Intel CPUs for a long time. After a while, lots of PC and laptop manufacturers started switching their model lineup to include AMD chips. With the pandemic, there's been heavy demand for computer replacements. There is very little available on the market period.
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New chip fab needed... (Score:2)
If Taiwan's capacity is full yet again, isn't it time some investors set up a competitor?
Re:New chip fab needed... (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.pymnts.com/news/re... [pymnts.com]
So by the time you plonk down your $4 billion dollars and a few years later your fab is ready, there might be a big slump in demand because everybody already bought a new computer for telecommuting they don't even need any more.
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A part of the demand has been that new computers are clearly faster and more powerful than the machines from three years ago. AMD has woken up the industry and is pushing things forward. In another three years, we may see 16 cores as middle of the road, with 32 cores at the high end, and 8 core processors being the low end stuff. AMD is clearly getting closer to that 5.0GHz mark, which doesn't even take into account the improvement to IPC. Intel on the other hand has 10nm quad-core chips, or 14nm ch
If you can do I better than Intel (Score:5, Interesting)
These are 7nm chips, which even Intel is incapable of producing.
If you are pretty sure you can fab chips better than Intel can, and you can do it at a price competitive with TSMC, with competitive terms etc, yes you should do it.
If their capacity remains maxed out and booked well I'm advance, we may see TSMC raise prices, which would make it easier to compete with them. One could offer slightly inferior chips at a significantly lower price, if TSMC raises prices.
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"These are 7nm chips, which even Intel is incapable of producing."
Cannon Lake and Ice Lake are build on Intel's 10 and 10+, which are 7nm processes.
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I'm sure Samsung is trying hard. And HSMC. And Intel.
But TSMC is head of everyone, already getting into on 5 nm and 3 nm technology. And the three I listed above that can achieve 7 nm and thus are the only ones that are at least close to what TSMC is doing. After that would be Globalfoundries, which gave up the race a while ago, but despite their standstill their 12 nm is still far ahead of everyone else apart from the four listed above. After that there's various 22 nm foundries.
Competing in this market is
Re: New chip fab needed... (Score:2)
Traditionally they have the capacity to do all Intel chips, I wouldn't bet against them eventually getting there again. They're closer to fab capacity than starting from scratch.
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Uhm, with Apple and Microsoft nearly worth a trillion each, a billion isn't that hard to find.
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Well, both companies could lose a billion or more to a slowdown in the computer economy caused by a processor shortage.
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You're both right (Score:2)
It's true that Microsoft and Apple don't have experience building out a fab, though they both have a lot of experience working with Intel and AMD on chip design.
HOWEVER, Timothy Hendry and Shaheen Dayal have a ton of fab experience, and Apple can have those folks fpr about mere million dollars each. Microsoft or Apple can BUY fab experience. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's experience and expertise is in moving a huge technology company in a new direction. He doesn't code the Windows GUI, he hires the righ
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> How can Apple or anyone else just build a competing fab to TSMC given no experience or expertise.
Not that it's an easy thing to do, but they *can* hire the experience and expertise.
Microsoft has enough cash to buy a controlling interest in TSMC - they can buy all of the people and equipment like TSMC that they want.
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Let me put it this way regarding "experience and expertise".
Suppose one put a together a list of the top 10,000 people with the needed experience and expertise. At and average of $250,000 each, it would cost $2.5 billion to hire 10,000 experts. Microsoft has $130 billion. They can afford to hire 100,000 of the most experienced people, and still have $100 billion to spend on other parts of the project.
Again, not that they should, not that it would be guaranteed to be successful, but thry could. Just like
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> Again the example of Intel shows that itâ(TM)s not easy to build a new fab
Yep, that's why I said "not that it would easy" and "not that it would be guaranteed to be successful". The example of Intel show that experience with fabs isn't the factor they're missing - they have more fab experience on their payroll than anyone in the world. So experience isn't the missing piece.
I would bet that the people at TSMC simply hit on some good ideas that the Intel folks haven't, some adjustments to techniq
Re:PS5 (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think you'll find that the PS5 and XBox both use AMD APUs.
They're literally using up all the capacity at their own suppliers making AMD chips for other customers.
The "it's an industry-wide" thing is a nonsense excuse. AMD filled up the capacity with their big-customers, which is why AMD can't make more chips in the lower-brackets.
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Re:PS5 (Score:5, Informative)
Its not Microsoft and Sony that are in charge of producing the chips. They are custom AMD chips designed by AMD and its AMD that is having those chips produced by TSMC (to then supply them to Sony and Microsoft and whoever makes the consoles).
There will be contracts in place between Sony and AMD and contracts in place between Microsoft and AMD. These contracts will specify how many CPUs AMD (and its fab partners) have to supply. AMD can't just turn around and tell Sony and Microsoft to get stuffed so they can make more laptop CPUs.
Glad you aren't running it :) (Score:5, Insightful)
> Does TSMC know that the PS5 and Xbox series X aren't even released yet?
Do you know that you actually have to fab the chip for PS5 BEFORE you can put that PS5 in Walmart? You thought they'd sell them to consumers first, then build the consoles, then fab the chips that are in the consoles?
> What kind of executives work for AMD that they couldn't tell TSMC to tell Sony and Microsoft to suck it.
The kind that are smart enough not to tell their biggest customers to "suck it". Sony will buy maybe 100 million chips. Microsoft might sell 30 million. These AMD executives kinda like selling 130 million chips. (PlayStation and Xbox are AMD Zen 2 CPUs).
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> You thought they'd sell them to consumers first, then build the consoles, then fab the chips that are in the consoles?
I would really like to get in on the ground floor of your new business model! This sounds like a great way to only make as many as we know we can sell! Christmas morning may be a bit of a downer ("It doesn't even turn on?"), but Thanksgiving the next year will fix that ("Honey, the parts arrived for assembling your game console... do you still have the shell we bought you at Ch
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You're being sarcastic, but isn't that how most games are made these days?
"Here's some artwork and what the game will look like, order now!"
Selling like hotcakes! (Score:2)
Sure sounds like AMD is selling way more chips than they anticipated. This may explain why their stock price has climbed over 150% in the last month.
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This is how you keep prices up. Create a little "shortage".
Compulsory licensing would fix this problem in a hurry. Somebody else could open up a factory and pay AMD a reasonable royalty.
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Somebody else could open up a factory and pay AMD a reasonable royalty.
Who else can open a new 7nm fab?
Why wouldn't TSMC do it if there was money in it?
Nope. (Score:2)
Compulsory licensing would fix this problem in a hurry. Somebody else could open up a factory and pay AMD a reasonable royalty.
Not unless they have billions in dollars to make a fab lab and several years to figure out how to reliably make 7nm lithographic features.
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Not unless they have billions in dollars to make a fab lab and several years to figure out how to reliably make 7nm lithographic features.
Some people do. Take Intel, for instance. Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, ARM, Google, Amazon, General Motors, China, Russia... Ask the prez, he's rich, right? They can use AMD's 7nm process, and maybe they can make a tidy profit also
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GlobalFoundries actually has experience running fabs, and they *gave up* on 7nm.
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Under compulsory licensing they can use what works for AMD.
There are no real shortages in this business. They need to keep prices up, can't be saturating the market. When prices do crash, suddenly a chip factory explodes. Watch the market, it's funny as hell, prices jump as soon as the first dumpster ignites
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Under compulsory licensing they can use what works for AMD.
AMD outsources their fabrication to TMSC in Taiwan, you dummy.
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The licensing has to come from AMD, Mr. Sanford
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great... but how is anyone going to fabricate it if TSMC is the only company with the equipment and knowledge to fabricate it? TSMC wouldn't be forced to license their tech because they are a Taiwanese company.
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Compulsory licensing has to apply to everybody. They won't have a choice. If the equipment and knowledge are under patent and copyright, the specs are there to see. We can just make the stuff without their permission if they don't want to play ball.
omfg (Score:2)
They are not subject to US law and everything about their fabrication techniques are covered as trade secrets. What you are suggesting would destroy their entire business model. They would literally just stop making chips for the US companies and still have no shortage of business partners. The US would then by sanctioned by the UN for violating several international laws. Are you seriously this fucking retarded or do you think like the CCP and believe you should be able to impose laws upon the entire w
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You don't "impose" compulsory licensing, you just do it. You make a reasonable offer on what you use, and they can take it or leave it. We don't have to worry about who wants to do business. Somebody will always fill in the gaps, and they'll make plenty of money, with or without a partnership.
And the UN? Please... Since when does the US accept that? Or any international courts? It's all perfectly in line with existing US military adventures. *We're keeping the oil*
High end machines aren't even there (Score:5, Insightful)
The most interesting part here is that Ryzens aren't even used in high end lines of notebooks by most large OEMs right now. So they're selling out everything they have on lower margin machines.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens in a few months when higher end notebook lines start showing up with Ryzens.
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I'm looking to buy one of those when my 2020 bonus check arrives in January, I just hope they can see their way clear to build a laptop w/o the AMD GPU garbage..
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I'm hoping they have USB 4 on them soon so we can get Thunderbolt support. It's about the only major disadvantage of an AMD laptop, in all other ways they are superior to the current Intel parts.
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Heinz? (Score:2)
I think no German since the existence of Heise has ever used that first name. It is just Heise, on heise.de, to everyone of us.
And yeah, they're pretty mich an institution.
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When every kid needs a laptop for school... (Score:4, Interesting)
... this is what we should expect to happen. Demand for machines globally is through the roof because of the quarantine, and with school starting in USA, Canada, Europe, and Latin America, it's going to get more intense, I expect.