Rumors, speculations and leaked information on the coming graphics cards at the 28nm node have started appearing now that TSMC says the technology is not far away. There are talks about delays though since TSMC isn’t quite ready with 28nm just yet. This may push NVIDIA’s coming architecture Kepler into 2012.
Kepler, like Fermi, is named after a famous scientist, will according to NVIDIA bring three to four times better performance per watt in 64-bit floating point double precision operations. That is at least what we were told at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference a year ago. Kepler is not expected to be a whole new step, but based on Fermi.
Kepler will like AMD’s coming architecture Southern Islands use TSMC’s 28nm technology, but it looks like TSMC has some problems, as always. The problems are yield related, which is a big issue for NVIDIA that was hoping to launch in late 2011, but may be forced into 2012 according to sources to Fudzilla.
The launch at the end of 2011 is possible for NVIDIA
The other day we wrote about four code names from AMD’s Southern Islan architecture found in beta drivers, which hints a launch is not far off. But also AMD has yield problems and it is still uncertain when we will see the new GPUs. Earlier rumors have hinted of a launch this year, but it is not impossible that also AMD may be forced into next year since AMD also uses TSMC.
When TSMC rolled out the 40nm node it get contaminated and it took months to correct. With some luck it has learned from previous mistakes and the transition to 28nm should be a lot more convenient that the turbulent 40nm transition.
