There is always an initial supply of newly released hardware that is not enough to meet demand, whether it is Intel's new Comet Lake CPUs, Nvidia's graphics cards, or anything coming out of AMD's processor and GPU skunkworks. generation products are always in tight supply.

You'll spend months voraciously reading every leak, rumor, and speculative article about a new slice of gaming silicon, only to have a "out of stock" message appear on every retailer's page as soon as it goes on sale.

And that seems to be especially true when it comes to products based on TSMC's in-demand 7nm manufacturing process For companies like AMD, going fabless has many advantages. It means that development resources can be focused purely on design, rather than on process node manufacturing. Outsourcing the manufacturing also means that they are better protected from potential problems due to the possibility of switching to alternative equipment.

On the flip side, when TSMC partners on cutting-edge nodes, it will be competing with many other high-tech companies pursuing the latest hardware production. And that means production capacity will be strained. [AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said in the company's latest financial briefing, "I've said it before and I'll say it again, 7nm is tight.

For AMD, that means more manufacturing capacity with TSMC. After the U.S. tightened import restrictions, Huawei's whitewash created some extra space, and AMD moved to fill the gap in anticipation of increased demand.

"Demand is up from our initial expectations," Dr. Suh said.

With both the AMD RDNA 2 and Zen 3/Ryzen 4000 CPUs coming later this year, there is likely to be a great deal of product traction with respect to the 7nm node, where both graphics cards and processors are at the heart, as Dr. Su reaffirmed again on the conference call.

However, while AMD is ramping up manufacturing capacity with its Taiwanese partners, the popular CEO feels it is important to reiterate that 7nm supply is still tight.

"We are ramping up production capacity to meet that need," she said, "but it is tight, and we see opportunities there as we continue to ramp up production capacity. So from that standpoint, demand is strong."

To me, it sounds like AMD wants to add a little more TSMC manufacturing capacity. And given how much publicity the upcoming Big Navi graphics cards are getting and how well supported AMD's previous generation of Ryzen CPUs are, I can see a near future where everything the Red Team can ship will be sold. [Yes, as Dr. Sue said, and she will say it again, 7nm is tight, so supply in the channel may not be available until later this year.