PS4 and Xbox One’s APUs’ Chips Will Get New Manufacturer This Year; AMD “Pleased” With Console Sales

Giuseppe Nelva April 20, 2014 1:19 AM EST

AMD recently held its quarterly earnings conference call for the first fiscal quarter of 2014, and it included some interesting information about the chips that form the heart of the PS4 and of the Xbox One.

General Manager of Global Business Units Lisa Su explained that chips made at the new semiconductor foundry GlobalFoundtries will start being delivered for consoles in the second half of this year, even if the new manufacturer won’t result in a reduction in costs for AMD itself (which probably means that Sony and Microsoft won’t see their costs reduced as well for the moment).

Su also mentioned that there has been some seasonality in the performance of the consoles (and of the chips) in the latest quarter coming out of the holidays, but the company is pleased with the results. AMD isn’t seeing any significant inventory build-up and expects higher sales of semi-conductors for PS4 and Xbox One in the second half of the year, entering the second holiday season.

We see that the consoles are selling through nicely.

The addition of the new foundry to the manufacturing pipeline also means that at least part of the semiconductors for the two consoles will be manufactured in Singapore, Dresden, Germany and Saratoga County, NY, USA. Previously they were produced only by the Taiwan-based foundry TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).