Globalfoundries and samsung are making amd 'polaris 30' silicon

The AMD RX 590 core GPU is built at 12nm, providing power and performance enhancements that can make the graphics card far outperform the standard RX 580, despite using the same architecture and design. based on Polaris.

AMD RX 590 'Polaris 30' manufactured by GlobalFoundries and Samsung

Initially, AMD was going to exclusively use GlobalFoundries ' 12nm lithography node, but it is reported that the company is also using Samsung's manufacturing prowess.

For manufacturing the RX 590 they took a simple design approach, transferring their Polaris from 14nm to 12nm without any change in array size or design, leveraging the power and performance characteristics of the new node without the need of investing a significant amount of engineering time in developing an entirely new mid-range GPU.

With Globalfoundries licensing their Samsung 14nm process node, it makes sense that AMD designs could be manufactured by both companies, given the design similarities of their 14nm nodes and derivatives. Unfortunately, there is no way to know whether or not an RX 590 uses a Samsung Polaris 30 chip or GlobalFoundries, as they are both packaged in the same location.

With GlobalFoundries abandoning state-of-the-art node manufacturing, AMD has been left in a position to diversify, with its already announced 7nm products from TSMC. With its “chiplet” CPU designs, AMD can mix and match chips from competing manufacturers, making it possible for us to see more of AMD's manufacturing capabilities at Samsung in the future.

As for the RX 590, there is no way of knowing if Samsung or Globalfoundries made the silicon on specific graphics cards, making it impossible to know if either of the two manufacturers produced a superior end product in terms of power consumption or overclocking. It will be curious to see some RX 590 being able to reach higher frequencies than others.

Overclock3D font