Globalfoundries May Deliver First 28nm Chips in the First Half of 2011

[Skurge]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/...rst_28nm_Chips_in_the_First_Half_of_2011.html

Good news I assume.

 

[RussianSensation]

I guess we won't be using current GPUs on Crysis 2 then because it also got delayed to Q1 2011, just in time for 28nm hardware:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/aug/03/crysis-2-delayed

 

[Wreckage]

Has GF even made a GPU yet?

 

[happy medium]

I guess we won't be using current GPUs on Crysis 2 then because it also got delayed to Q1 2011, just in time for 28nm hardware:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/aug/03/crysis-2-delayed

Last I heard, 28nm was Q2 2011, at best.

 

[OCGuy]

I guess we won't be using current GPUs on Crysis 2 then because it also got delayed to Q1 2011, just in time for 28nm hardware:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/aug/03/crysis-2-delayed

Russian you are one of the more informed posters I see here....you know that just because it goes to risk production in H1 doesn't mean we will see retail chips right away.


Being a fan of hardware in general, I am glad to see TSMC get some competition.

 

[Acanthus]

Is there a particular reason that GF can't/won't make ATi chips on 32nm?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

AMD CPUs will be using (all?) of 32nm?

 

[Sylvanas]

32nm is being Skipped by both TSMC and GF. Going straight for 28nm.

 

[Scali]

Intel must have pretty double feelings about this...
If they had anything remotely decent for a GPU architecture, they could have flooded the market with 32 nm GPUs... The process advantage might have made up for any architectural weaknesses.

I bet Intel realizes this as well... Where AMD is already struggling to keep up with Intel's CPU manufacturing, the GPU market is a complete push-over. TSMC is a very weak spot in the operation of nVidia and AMD.

 

[ViRGE]

This is good news if it's true, but right now I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude. I still expect that we won't see a high-end card using 28nm until at least 2 years after the first high-end 40nm card - the Radeon 5800 series (Cypress). That would put a new card out at September of 2011.

 

[Dribble]

Starting to produce at 28nm doesn't mean they (TMSC or GF) will be able to initially produce the monster chips that are high end gpu's. Realistically that's going to come later. Chances are it'll also take GF a longer then TMSC to start producing big graphics chips as they lack experience at doing that.

 

[Janooo]

Starting to produce at 28nm doesn't mean they (TMSC or GF) will be able to initially produce the monster chips that are high end gpu's. Realistically that's going to come later. Chances are it'll also take GF a longer then TMSC to start producing big graphics chips as they lack experience at doing that.

AMD helps TSMC in introduction of new nodes. They can help GF as well. They have a lots of experience.

 

[Martimus]

Is there a particular reason that GF can't/won't make ATi chips on 32nm?

The GF 32nm process is SOI, their 28nm process is bulk. There are two primary reasons they don't use SOI for graphics production:
- it is more expensive than bulk
- The current architecture was designed for bulk manufacturing, so redesigning it for SOI instead of bulk would cost both time and money.


The SOI process was delayed because the new low-k dielectic they were using on the lowest 4 layers would crack during packaging, so they needed to do a redesign; which pushed back validation by ~6 months. (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2092185)

 

[IntelUser2000]

It's rather simple why we won't see 28nm GPUs in early 2011. Typical product cycle is 1 year. Northern Islands based on 40nm is end of this year. They aren't going to take the risk of making another 40nm generation when in 6 months or so a new generation based on a process shrink comes out.

 

[bryanW1995]

I don't agree, amd has a major advantage over nvidia right now. but as we have all seen recently, all it takes is one decent card to change people's perception. amd can't afford to wait another year before rolling out SI or NI. I think they're smart to bump SI up to 400mm2 or so and release asap. they can always do the die shrink in 6-9 months, plus it will give them an excuse to come out with 7 series then.

edit: also, they will probably want to start 28nm with smaller gpus, especially since it will be gf's first go-round on gpus.