ATI's R360 and RV360 taped out at TSMC

[bgeh]

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ATI's R360 and RV360 taped out at TSMC

Graphics battle never ending saga


By Oscar Lee: Tuesday 13 May 2003, 10:17

ATI WILL DISTRIBUTE its next generation GPUs, namely R360 for the high-end market and RV360 for the mainstream market, to its partners beginning in July, it has emerged.
Both R360 and RV360 will be manufactured by TSMC, using 0.15µ and 0.13µ processes, respectively. There will be a significant volume increase in ATI's Q3 orders at TSMC compared to the second quarter.

ATI will continue to draw on TSMC as its primary partner, although it has given part of its graphic chip orders to UMC this year, maintaining its dual-fab partnership strategy. According to sources, ATI is inclined to have UMC manufacturing its 0.15µ GPUs in the future, while concentrating its 0.13µ GPU orders at TSMC.

Faced with Nvidia's NV35 high-end GPU announced earlier this week, ATI plans to head into battle with Radeon 9800 first. It will deliver the more powerful R360 later to combat NV35. R360 will be manufactured by TSMC using 0.15µ process, while RV360, the successor of RV350 for the mainstream market, will use 0.13µ process.

TSMC has declined to comment on ATI's orders, the Chinese press reports here, but according to an ATI executive, the production of RV350 has been going quite smoothly, and its yield has met the company's expectation.

The volume of RV280 is continuing to increase at UMC, and ATI is considering to have another new product manufactured by UMC. This will be the second ATI GPU utilizing UMC's 0.15u process, though UMC has also declined to comment on customers' orders.

Besides the graphic chips, ATI will enter the integrated chipset market during the second half of this year, competing for the market share with VIA, Intel, SiS, and ALi in the P4 chipset market. ATI's chipsets will also be manufactured by TSMC and UMC.

ATI is the first company worldwide to obtain Pentium 4 chipset licenses from Intel. Targeting the integrated market, ATI's chipsets will enter mass production in July. ATI has had excellent performance in the notebook chipset market. As it steps into the desktop field, ATI will attempt to avoid over-lengthening its product line by not producing discrete chipsets.

 

[bluemax]

Whoa! I wonder what minor difference they're making? RV350 vs. RV360 has me the most curious.... the 9600 hasn't even been out very long! It'll be close to 4-6 months before we see one I'll bet.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Certainly not impossible I dont think. Few tweeks to the core, some higher yields (400+MHz), then some super fast ram that nVida is sporting on the 5900, 425MHz DDRI not too shabby compared to the 500MHz DDRII

Radeon 9900 I'd think would be at least a 400/400 but I think all this could just be crazy talk, that is if it weren't for the Anandtech review mentioning the rumors. Seems kind of absurd just playing leap frog like this over a flagship hardly anyone will be buying in comparison to the budgets.

Oh well, the more the merrier, lower prices and more options for us!

 

[Jeff7]

Sounds great! What the heck is TSMC?

 

[Spicedaddy]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Sounds great! What the heck is TSMC?

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

 

[keitaro]

Now when will ATi start making 130nm version of the R350? Or R360 for that matter? I mean, since the FX5900U is now the top performer, I thought that it'd be a better option to move to a smaller fab process. I'm just confused as to why they are tweaking the R3x0 core further when they could go 130nm and hit higher clock speed to overtake the nv35. Anyone want to explain what're ATi's plans with their chips?

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Sounds great! What the heck is TSMC?

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

TSMC is the plant that actually builds the chips that ATI and Nvidia design. Think of ATI as a R&D company. ATI makes nothing. they just do research and resell things. For example. ATI designs R300 and sends plans to TSMC. TSMC constructs the chips. ATI purchases the chips and resells them to Saffire or other AIB manufactures. Saphire puts the chip onto the board that they make and sells it. Alot of companies use TSMC to make their chips. Nvidia is TSMC's largest customer. ATI has also got a deal with UMC to make their chips. UMC does the same thing as TSMC. I know Matrox uses UMC also. Nvidia is gonna start shifting more and more of its chip orders to IBM. IBM is one of the most advanced foundries, save intel.

pardon poor grammar/spelling

 

[BFG10K]

I'd expect simple core/memory speed bumps but it's certainly possible that ATi will surprise us.

 

[Genx87]

Now when will ATi start making 130nm version of the R350? Or R360 for that matter? I mean, since the FX5900U is now the top performer, I thought that it'd be a better option to move to a smaller fab process. I'm just confused as to why they are tweaking the R3x0 core further when they could go 130nm and hit higher clock speed to overtake the nv35. Anyone want to explain what're ATi's plans with their chips?

Chances are real high ATi cant get a high clocked R350 part on the .13 micro process. Putting RV350 on it is a safer bet as it is a much less complex design. I said this a long time ago that ATi will not simply be able to shrink the R300 to .13 and make it work. Nvidia went through the tough part and ATI has the ability to still use .15 for thier part. But I think with .15 it will limit the clock.

 

[idNut]

Sometimes I can't stand these graphics wars.

 

[Glitchny]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Now when will ATi start making 130nm version of the R350? Or R360 for that matter? I mean, since the FX5900U is now the top performer, I thought that it'd be a better option to move to a smaller fab process. I'm just confused as to why they are tweaking the R3x0 core further when they could go 130nm and hit higher clock speed to overtake the nv35. Anyone want to explain what're ATi's plans with their chips?

Chances are real high ATi cant get a high clocked R350 part on the .13 micro process. Putting RV350 on it is a safer bet as it is a much less complex design. I said this a long time ago that ATi will not simply be able to shrink the R300 to .13 and make it work. Nvidia went through the tough part and ATI has the ability to still use .15 for thier part. But I think with .15 it will limit the clock.

also by using .15 they can let .13 mature even more and still get gains in performance out of the ..15 chips. thus when they are ready to make the move .13 will be in its prime state most likley and get greater yeilds

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Now when will ATi start making 130nm version of the R350? Or R360 for that matter? I mean, since the FX5900U is now the top performer, I thought that it'd be a better option to move to a smaller fab process. I'm just confused as to why they are tweaking the R3x0 core further when they could go 130nm and hit higher clock speed to overtake the nv35. Anyone want to explain what're ATi's plans with their chips?

Chances are real high ATi cant get a high clocked R350 part on the .13 micro process. Putting RV350 on it is a safer bet as it is a much less complex design. I said this a long time ago that ATi will not simply be able to shrink the R300 to .13 and make it work. Nvidia went through the tough part and ATI has the ability to still use .15 for thier part. But I think with .15 it will limit the clock.

R390 will be .13u and should easily topple the NV35/9800. However, I believe it is intended to compete with the NV40 and is due out sometime this fall.

 

[Chobits]

Hrmm....Its all good! Normally I would think bad because new cards are coming out so often now but this does lower prices...

This fall...shant I dream a 9600pro at 100 dollars? Dream I shall

 

[keitaro]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Now when will ATi start making 130nm version of the R350? Or R360 for that matter? I mean, since the FX5900U is now the top performer, I thought that it'd be a better option to move to a smaller fab process. I'm just confused as to why they are tweaking the R3x0 core further when they could go 130nm and hit higher clock speed to overtake the nv35. Anyone want to explain what're ATi's plans with their chips?
Chances are real high ATi cant get a high clocked R350 part on the .13 micro process. Putting RV350 on it is a safer bet as it is a much less complex design. I said this a long time ago that ATi will not simply be able to shrink the R300 to .13 and make it work. Nvidia went through the tough part and ATI has the ability to still use .15 for thier part. But I think with .15 it will limit the clock.

Hmm... so lemme get this straight... ATi tweaked their R300 which then becomes the R350... but a .13 R350 isn't running well on them so they fall back to the .15 process? If they do plan on transitioning over to .13, does it require a partial re-engineering to make it work because of the smaller distance between two transistors?