> 14nm was the first that everyone was on their own, because IBM failed their research. In the end, Samsung managed to get it done, and GloFo either failed or... didn't try really hard ? This is where I'm gonna speculate a tiny bit and be less charitable, I don't think that GloFo was sufficiently funded in terms of process development, despite their parent owner being able to.
For whatever it's worth, it feels like GloFo has had various process issues for a -long- time. While there were issues with the Bulldozer design itself from a deep pipeline perspective etc, the other factor in it's lukewarm lifetime (especially the first couple gens) was issues with GloFo's processes even back then. I know some of that was that they were trying to gear more towards bulk silicon vs CPUs but I think there were other issues too.
For whatever it's worth, it feels like GloFo has had various process issues for a -long- time. While there were issues with the Bulldozer design itself from a deep pipeline perspective etc, the other factor in it's lukewarm lifetime (especially the first couple gens) was issues with GloFo's processes even back then. I know some of that was that they were trying to gear more towards bulk silicon vs CPUs but I think there were other issues too.