AMD Leaving Some Chips Sectors ‘Underserviced’

The semiconductor industry typically goes through “cycles” of supply and demand imbalance, “but this one is different,” Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su told a J.P. Morgan virtual conference Monday. “The difference is you see every segment of the market having high demand.” Demand is “very, very high, and higher perhaps than any of us might have expected when we started the year,” she said. “The supply chain has actually been very, very focused on adding more capability. We saw sort of the beginnings of this late last year. We’ve been working very, very closely with our supply chain partners to continue to ramp up supply, adding additional capacity, doing all kinds of productivity improvements.” Su expects more capacity will come online “as we go through the next couple of quarters,” she said. “This will continue to be a key area of focus for the entire supply chain.” Amid the industry’s realization that demand is exceeding supply, “we have done a good job at prioritizing” existing capacity, said Su, “ensuring that we are giving our customers what they need to advance their product lines.” AMD deliberately is leaving some segments of the PC business “underserviced,” especially the “lower end of the PC market,” she said. “We have prioritized some of the higher-end commercial SKUs and gaming SKUs and those kinds of things.” With inventories so “very lean” throughout the semiconductor supply chain, no one is “ordering stuff to put it on the shelves,” but immediately dispatching product that “end customers want,” she said. Supply chain cooperation “is really unprecedented,” said Su.