GlobalFoundries trying to become AMD again. 😁
I didn’t think of that, but it’s true! 😄
Worth pointing out that MIPS is a mere shadow of it’s former self (some of my first routers were based on MIPS). They are currently a relatively small RISC-V design firm.
Interesting move considering that having design and manufacturing separate for reasons of incentive alignment and conflict of interest seems like the more successful strategy.
But I guess with RISC-V the market is still so small this might help them try and create a niche and induce some demand? Because otherwise I think they have it pretty rough since abandoning the leading edge race. This article from last year reported that clients are switching to smaller nodes faster than expected (which I assume is a trend that has continued) and China probably also has only accelerated their own capacities including for older nodes.
I’m happy to see a big company put in money into RISC-V. I think this could work out. Unlike Intel competing on the bleeding edge, GF may be going for cheaper lower compute requirement use cases which I can see working out and keeping their foundries busy. There was an article a year ago about GlobalFoundry’s customers shifting to sub-10nm faster than anticipated which they abandoned their pursuits 7 years ago. Maybe they can compete for any of the car chips, appliances, TV and TV boxes, defense applications, everything that Rockchip and Amlogic chips show up in
