AMD, NVIDIA, VIA, Marvell and Broadcom are some of the customers at semiconductor manufacturer TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The first two are some of the few that has been requesting the latest 40nm in TSMC’s fabs, and even if the first chips were announced months ago the availability has been disastrous. TSMC hasn’t managed to get the 40nm process in order and AMD’s Radeon HD 4770 that looked so promising has been given an honest chance.
It looks like TSMC has finally gotten the ball rolling and its new 40/45nm nodes should start delivering larger quantities. Company VP, Morris Chang, has officially announced that TSMC has doubled the yields from 30% up to 60%. Something we already knew though.
In the past, each made 40nm wafer had 70% defective or sub-par circuits, but now the number has been reduced to only 40% and it hopes to press no less than 30,000 40nm wafers in Q3.
An announcement that not only lifted the spirits at TSMC but perhaps more with its customers. Not to mention the consumers that are sitting around waiting for the new and soon to be launched 40nm graphics circuits.
AMD hopes to launch the new DX11 GPUs in September and TSMC’s improved yields is a key component. Availability should not be a major issue then, unless the chip is a killer and still sells out…
ASUS Radeon HD 4770 with 40nm technology
