AMD removes references to Taiwan from its CPUs, but says it’s not because of China

AMD removed references to Taiwan from its CPUs, but says it’s not because of China. It is believed that this step is related to China’s demands, although AMD representatives deny this, writes Tom’s Hardware.

The Diffused in Taiwan inscription, which indicates that the chip inside was manufactured in Taiwan, has disappeared from the processor’s lid, but the Made in Malaysia inscription remains, indicating that the final assembly, testing, and packaging of the processor took place in Malaysia.

“AMD removed the country of diffusion from all new CPU and APU products in 2023 to align with the product marking process for our other products,” an AMD representative told Tom’s Hardware.

The company will no longer silkscreen any of its products, both consumer and enterprise processors, with the country where the silicon matrix inside the chip was manufactured (diffusion). In the case of all AMD hi-end products, these silicon dies are created by TSMC in Taiwan.

The country of manufacture of the chip is usually not indicated on any processor, so AMD’s removal of the marking is most likely not a restriction on the part of China, for example, chips from Intel and other companies also often do not indicate the country where the chip was manufactured.

Although AMD’s new chip labeling strategy is not officially linked to political reasons, it is certain that problems with labeling products intended for China have also had some impact.

Earlier, AMD was rumored to have postponed the release of the Radeon RX 7900 in China because of the packaging, which listed Taiwan as the country of origin. Peripheral manufacturer Corsair has also faced customer dissatisfaction in China over the packaging, prompting it to even issue a public apology for “printing errors.”