AMD in talks with Samsung to manufacture future chips from 2028

AMD is in talks with Samsung to manufacture some of its future CPUs starting in 2028, according to Nikkei Asia, citing a single source with knowledge of the discussions. The driver is capacity constraints at TSMC, particularly on its most advanced process nodes.

Right now AMD spreads its production across several TSMC nodes — the Ryzen 7 9800X3D uses N4P for its CCD and N6 for its IOD, Zen 5c chips use N3, and the next-gen Epyc server processors are confirmed for TSMC's cutting-edge N2. The problem is that N2 capacity will be tight, squeezed hard by AI chip demand, and AMD apparently doesn't want server orders to cannibalize consumer CPU supply. Samsung could step in for two specific product types: budget APUs, which don't need the smallest and most expensive nodes, and the IOD for Zen 6 processors, which is packed with analog circuitry — memory controllers, PCIe, USB, Infinity Fabric — that doesn't benefit much from node shrinks anyway. Samsung's 4LPP process looks like a natural fit for both. Simply using TSMC N4 instead isn't straightforward either, since Nvidia occupies a huge chunk of that node's capacity for its Blackwell AI chips, and that demand won't evaporate before Zen 6 ships.

There's also a more aggressive scenario floating around from last year's rumors: AMD could use Samsung's 2 nm node alongside TSMC N2, producing two flavors of Zen 6 CCD — premium TSMC silicon for Epyc, and slightly cheaper, slightly slower Samsung silicon for mainstream Ryzen. That would be a significant structural shift for a company that has relied almost exclusively on TSMC since spinning off its fabs in 2008.

AMD hasn't commented officially, and the Nikkei Asia report rests on a single unnamed source, so treat this as credible speculation rather than confirmed roadmap. If the talks do lead somewhere, 2028 is the earliest consumers would see Samsung-made AMD chips in the wild.