Samsung failed to sign a contract with AMD to manufacture high-tech microprocessors

Despite being the world’s second largest semiconductor manufacturer after TSMC, Samsung has failed to attract even one contract from AMD to manufacture GPUs, CPUs or APUs.

With a portfolio that includes processor series such as Zen 3, Zen 3+ and Zen 4, AMD is a valuable customer for semiconductor manufacturers capable of delivering 7nm, 6nm or 5nm chips. However, despite having sufficient capacity for any of the manufacturing nodes mentioned, Samsung has failed to even make it onto the list of secondary suppliers, with AMD preferring the services of rivals TSMC and Global Foundries.

According to industry sources, the 4nm and 5nm chips manufactured by Samsung are considered less efficient than those produced by TSMC or GF, the differences being so great that even the substantial discounts from the competition’s tariffs were not enough to attract major customers. Thus AMD would have been more interested in securing competitiveness against rival Intel than in the increased costs of manufacturing the chips in question.

However, not attracting valuable customers for existing manufacturing nodes may only be a temporary setback for Samsung, as the South Korean manufacturer is already in advanced talks to reserve the 3nm manufacturing node for customers such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm, IBM and Baidu. That is, of course, provided the manufacturing process announced for 2024 meets the promised performance and efficiency criteria.