Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said that its semi-custom chip business — which includes game console chips — should start growing in 2020 and beyond, after taking a dip this year. That suggests that the ramp of the PlayStation 5 and other game console hardware should help AMD over time.
Su made the remarks in an analyst conference call for the company’s first-quarter earnings report, which slightly beat analyst expectations. AMD announced earlier this year that it is working with Sony on the processor for the PlayStation 5 game console that is expected to debut next year.
Santa Clara, California-based AMD is also making custom versions of its data center graphics processing units (GPUs) for the Google Stadia cloud-gaming platform. AMD is also refreshing its line of PC-oriented GPUs.
Su said AMD’s semi-custom business is likely to be down around 20% in 2019, with growth resuming in 2020 and beyond. Outside the game console space, Su said that AMD should see other semi-custom business as well.
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Gross profit margins on the game console chips are lower than the average for overall AMD sales, Su said.
“We are honored that Sony has selected a custom AMD SOC based on our Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU architectures to power its next-generation PlayStation console,” Su said.
