The Radeon chips of AMD's graphics department Ati could be produced by contractor Globalfoundries as soon as their 28 nanometer production is launched. PC Games Hardware learned this when visiting the former AMD factories in Dresden, Germany.
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Since the outsourcing of the AMD production in March the facility in Dresden is run by Globalfoundries, one third of which is owned by AMD. In "Fab 1” the company mainly produces AMD processors in 45 nanometer structure. But Globalfoundries is also working for other partners, like ST Microelectronics and mobile processor specialist ARM, who delivers a CPUs for the Iphone, will follow soon.
For 2010 Globalfoundries plans to start the 32 nanometer production - main customer will once again be AMD. In Q4 2010 the first 28 nanometer prototypes will be produced. Final products in this structure are not to be expected before 2011 but among them might be Ati graphics chips, that's at least what Globalfoundries hopes. Currently the Radeon GPUs are mainly made by the biggest contract manufacturer and Globalfoundries competitor TSMC, who is at the moment facing
problems with the yield rate of the new 40 nanometer process though.