Graphics Card Partners Losing Sleep over 28nm Manufacturing Woes
Graphics Card Partners Losing Sleep over 28nm Manufacturing Woes
Posted 10/26/2011 at 10:02am
| by Paul Lilly
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Poor yields and other challenges associated with the 28nm manufacturing process have Nvidia's and AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners starting to voice concerns about next generation GPUs, specifically Kepler (Nvidia) and Southern Islands (AMD). Both chip designers are turning to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce 28nm chips, and the lingering concern is that past issues may again present themselves.
According to DigiTimes, this has AIBs feeling conservative about upcoming 28nm chips. TSMC's issues with 40nm parts led to weak yields, and it's possible the same thing could happen with 28nm. And if that weren't enough, AIBs are also concerned about weakening demand for videocards and lower than expected gross margins, DigiTimes says.
Board partners are in a tough place. Sales of high-end discrete GPUs are down, and today's CPUs with integrated graphics are slowly cutting into sales of entry-level and mid-range cards. Throw in potential manufacturing problems and it's easy to see why AIBs less than optimistic.
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newegg911
October 26, 2011 at 9:18pm
You need to put things into perspective. They are lucky the fabs are shrinking down the process so quickly. It used to be years before a die shrink, nowadays it's like every six months it seems like. So even if they are having short term problems, the long term more than makes up for it.
I think the market is sort of saturated right now anyway. Most people that already have GTX 400/500 series or Radeon 500/600 series probably are trying to get another couple of years with what they already have.
praetor_alpha
October 26, 2011 at 3:04pm
Sure hope things get sorted out soon. I might be in the videocard market if my GTX 285 doesn't hold up well in Skyrim and ME3.
Neel Chauhan
October 26, 2011 at 10:14am
Why won't NVIDIA and AMD use someone else instead if TSMC has issues.
haboh
October 26, 2011 at 11:04am
Global foundaries which supply AMD with CPU chips is working on their 28nm and 22nm plant in NY and it's schedule to open in mid-2012. I don't know if they have another fab capable of 28nm chips?
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