One of these deals could be that AMD will be moving away from Global Foundries and to Samsung. That is the current rumor out of Electronic Times. We do know that AMD has shown interest (great interest) in Samsung’s 14nm process and they have also cut down orders to existing foundry partner Global Foundries. What is not known is why AMD would move away from Global Foundries when they are planning to implement the same process that Samsung is using.

This last piece of the puzzle could be simply due to more favorable terms from Samsung due to the technology sharing agreement developed with the HSA foundation. If this is the case it would have to be a rather big cut in terms for AMD to move. One other possibility is that the interest is in 14nm for AMD’s GPUs and they (AMD) are spinning this off to a different foundry to further separate the core CPU business from the newly formed Radeon Technologies Group.

Again all of this is speculation and from “unnamed sources”. There might be evidence to support the move, but there are still some missing pieces in the logic behind this. In my opinion it is far more likely that AMD would stick with Global Foundries to avoid the problems inherent in switching a foundry than run the risk of delays in product launches at this juncture. If they make the jump to Samsung and either fail to meet a product launch or have a shortage it could be disastrous for them. Still over the last five years, AMD has made some less than smart moves…