ASMedia lands mainstream PCIe chip design orders from AMD
Taiwan's ASMedia Technology is expected to land contract design orders for all mainstream PCIe chips from AMD even after the US chipmaker rolls out X570 motherboard chipsets that support PCIe 4.0 in mid-2019, although ASMedia will not complete tape-out for relevant solutions until the end of the year, according to industry sources.
ASMedia has been contracted to supply X370 and X470 motherboard PCH (platform control hub) chipsets, with the partnership expected to be extended to X500 series motherboard PCH although AMD has designed X570 motherboard PCH on its own, the sources said.
AMD has announced that its 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processors fabricated by TSMC with 7nm process will hit the market in mid-2019, which will be the world's first PC processor platform that supports PCIe Gen 4 with transmission speed doubling to 16GT/s. The PCIe Gen 4 is expected to become mainstream motherboard PCH in the future.
Despite specualtion that AMD will stop working with ASMedia in the development of next-generation 500 series motherboard PCH chipset after developing X570 motherboard chipsets on its own, ASMedia has maintained that its partnership with AMD in the next-generation 500 series chipsets will remain unchanged,as it has secured all the orders for mainstream motherboard PCH chipsets, the sources said.
The company will roll out complete tape-outs for PCIe 4.0 solutions by the end of 2019, the sources added.
ASMedia has reported revenues of NT$3.722 billion (US$121.01 million) for 2018, hitting a record high after surging 25.11% on year, with net EPS reaching NT$10.63 for the first three quarters of the year, higher than NT$7.13 for the whole year of 2017.
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