Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
but is not A0 normally the first stepping of a chip? A1 would be the second stepping unless nVidia changed numbering methods AFAIK, just to prove Charlie right of course.
Not much gets by you any other day of the week, I'm not surprised you picked up on this little discrepancy in the presented chronology of events either.
Yes, this being A1 silicon means it is not first silicon. First silicon is/was most definitely A0, and while we can formulate rational estimates on the
minimum time that NV could have gone from A0 tapeout to A1 silicon in hand that doesn't do anything to speak to just how long ago A0 might have taped out or how long ago A0 silicon was in hand.
(because we can't put an upper limit on how long NV took to complete their A1 respin, we can guess but we can't state with confidence)
So...yeah, just because Nvidia got A1 stepping silicon "days ago" we can't say anything about A0 not having taped out this spring or anything against the possibility that A0 silicon was inhouse this past spring. We can only say things regarding how long ago A0 silicon was probably inhouse
at a minimum. (i.e. it probably was in house no later than July as any later than that would have prevented A1 tapeout in August as needed to have A1 samples back in hand no later than end of Sept)
For all we know Nvidia has been playing around with A0 silicon for 6 months, tweaking the design in silico as well as physically on the A0 chips before committing to an A1 respin tapeout.
What I find intriguing about the conversations that seem to center around NV's tapeout timelines is not the cerebral discussions on what we know, what we don't, what we can assume, and what we agree we can't assume, but rather it is the rhetoric and vitriol that permeates these "examples of journalistic integrity at its finest" that really bemuses me.
So much effort to make hay over the smallest things in the most hateful and angry way possible. Its sad really, seriously in a mental-disorder sort of way. The demons these folks feel they need to fight, their world just doesn't seem like a happy place to live for them.