TSMC uses AMD EPYC to produce EPYC
We know that TSMC makes chips for AMD, but now it also uses the same processors to control the equipment used to make CPUs for the same company and other customers as well. There are hundreds of companies that use AMD EPYC-based machines for their important workloads. However, when it comes to mission-critical jobs, Intel Xeon (and even Intel Itanium) still dominate the market. Fortunately for AMD, things have started to change and TSMC announced that it now uses EPYC-based servers for its mission-critical operations control operations.Simon Wang, Director of Infrastructure and Communication Services Division at TSMC, said:
For the automation of machinery within our factory, each machine must have an x86 server to control the operating speed and the supply of water, electricity and gas or the consumption of power. These machines are very expensive and could be worth billions of dollars, but the servers that control them are much cheaper. I have to make sure that I have high availability in the event that one rack is inactive, in order to use another one to support the machine. With a standard block, I can generate around 1,000 virtual machines capable of controlling 1,000 fabulous instruments in our cleanroom. This means having huge cost savings without sacrificing redundancy or reliability.
TSMC began using AMD EPYC machines long ago for general data center workloads such as computing, storage and networking. AMD's 64-core EPYC processors have 128 PCIe lanes and support up to 4TB of memory, two crucial features for servers used to run virtual machines. But while the infrastructure to support TSMC's 50,000 employees globally is very complex and important (some would call it business-critical), it isn't as important as TSMC's servers that control tools in factories.
The latter cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and process wafers that contain hundreds of chips that can be used to build products worth tens of thousands of dollars. Each production tool uses one x86 server or at least one virtual server. Sometimes the hardware fails, so TSMC runs the workloads in such a way that a server can quickly replace the one that is no longer functioning.
TSMC currently uses the HPE DL325 G10 platform with AMD EPYC 7702P processors 64-core in data centers. It also uses 24-core EPYC 7F72-based servers with a frequency of 3.20 GHz for its research and development operations. As for the machines used in TSMC's factories, the foundry keeps their specifications secret. Interestingly, AMD's data center products are used not only to produce chips, but also to develop them. For example, the Radeon Technologies Group uses EPYC processors to design GPUs.
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TSMC is using AMD's industry-leading EPYC CPUs to make next-gen chips
TSMC has announced that it is using AMD EPYC processors in its general workload, and even R&D teams to make the very latest technology on the planet.
In a new post on AMD's website titled 'TSMC optimizes workloads with AMD EPYC CPUs' the company explains how it has been deploying AMD's industry-leading EPYC processors across its company. It started off with pushing the high core count beasts into their general workload, and then quickly into the R&D heart of TSMC.
Simon Wang, Director of Infrastructure and Communication Services Division at TSMC explains: 'We first introduced AMD EPYC processors into the general workload and they are being deployed with our research and development team'.
Wang added: 'Compatibility was the key factor before we started the large-scale deployment [of EPYC]. 'Performance-wise, we had no doubts. We tested [EPYC] with key applications and performance was excellent. For manufacturing and the general workloads for support functions, there has been no issue with compatibility'.
'We're now introducing EPYC servers into our manufacturing teams'.
TSMC is rolling out AMD EPYC processors throughout the company and its 50,000+ global employees, with the new HF high-frequency AMD EPYC processors of interest to TSMC. In particular, the AMD EPYC 7F72 which has 24 cores and a base clock of 3.2GHz.
Wang continued: 'That's the CPU we're considering for R&D, because of the high clock rate. This team doesn't necessarily need more sockets or cores. For R&D, if we use two sockets, that might create unexpected effects, because it means one CPU needs to communicate with another CPU, which will create overheads. So, for R&D, we choose a one-socket CPU and the high clock-rate will be an important advantage'.
You can read the entire post on AMD's website right here.