AMD has been working on two different graphics architectures over the last year and for reason out of the company’s control it had to revise its launch calender. As suspected the Radeon HD 6000 series was intended to launch at 32nm, which is now confirmed by AMD.
When talking to Bit-tech Matt Skynner, VP of GPUs, explained that Radeon HD 6000 was planned for launch in late 2010, or early 2011 with TSMC’s new 32 technology. When TSCM chose to skip 32nm and head for 28nm directly AMD had to rethink and decided to launch a new series at 40nm, earlier than previously planned.
Waiting out for TSMC’s 28nm technology was simply not on the table, which has proved to be the right move since the company has once again run into problems with its new node. TSMC has postponed the 28nm technology to the middle of next year and the big question is how this will affect AMD’s nextcoming graphics cards, and NVIDIA’s ditto.
GeForce GTX 580 rumors stronger by 28nm delays
Worth noting is that the rumors of GeForce GTX 580, a new flagship from NVIDIA based on the GF110 GPU, becomes more credible with TSMC’s delays. NVIDIA has like AMD no possibility of waiting for 28nm but needs void filler to stay competitive.
GF110 is said to be an optimized version of GF100 where NVIDIA will unlock all 512 CUDA cores through tunings and optimizations of the architecture keeping the power cosnumption on the same level as current circuits.
