AMD no longer has to pay millions in royalties to make 7nm CPUs and GPUs

AMD is now officially weapons-free to build future CPU and GPUs on 7nm and denser process nodes as GlobalFoundries steps down. The company has concluded discussions with foundry partner and former subsidiary GlobalFoundries, and while the fab will still be providing 12nm and above wafers, from here on out AMD won’t have to pay to jump ship to competing foundries. Lisa Su confirmed the seventh amendment to its Wafer Supply Agreement with GlobalFoundries during its Q4 earnings call. That’s a pretty big deal for team red, too. It had been beholden to the WSA with GlobalFoundries ever since it divested its interest in the foundry, and it has always had to spend mountains of cash on royalties to bypass the agreement when required by its clients' needs. But since GlobalFoundries announced it would be ending research and development into advancing denser process nodes last year - essentially giving up on 7nm process development - it has been slowly ceding its grasp on AMD’s production line, instead allowing TSMC to take up the mantle for all of AMD’s upcoming 7nm CPU and GPU products.