Ati moving to 0.13 faster than I thought?

[Joe DeFuria]

http://digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article2.asp?datePublish=2002/11/20&pages=08&seq=42

ATI Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) both plan to unveil 0.13-micron graphics chip samples by year-end. However, judging from their progress, the products will not be out in time for Christmas. At Comdex Fall 2002, no supporting graphics cards have been seen either.

That makes it sound like ATI could have a 0.13 micron chip ready at about the time GeForceFX ships.

Question is...what product(s)?

 

[T2k]

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3281

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Well, I personally give very little credibility to "rumors reported about R350" (ala FiringSquad in that thread you linked). They have "conflicting sources", for example, which tells me they have a lot of wires crossed.

Think about all the R(V)250 rumors that have been around since February last year. They ALL ended up being more or less wrong.

The digitimes article is the first "credible" evidence I've heard that ATI has some 0.13 chip almost ready and in the wings.

The obvious choices seem to be:
Might be R350 (Die shrink of R-300, replacing the chips in the 9500 and 9700 series?)
Might be RV350 (Modified and cut-down R-300 to replace Radeon 9000?)
Might be M10 (DX9 notebook part)

We have heard from Tom's hardware that the M10 might actually be pretty close...would fit in with the timeline from Digitimes. And usually, ATI releases the notebook part at a similar time as the "Value" part. (So M10 and RV350 would be very similar architecturally, and fabbed / released at the same time...)

 

[Prometheus]

Things are getting hot!!Competition is always good.I hope it brings GFFX price down from 499$ too.Are these companys going to stop launching products so I can buy the fastest and own the fastest by more than 2-3 months!!!

 

[Dave Baumann]

My suspicion is that the next parts from ATI will be .15

 

[Prometheus]

My suspicion is that the next parts from ATI will be .15

Is it just suspicion or do you know something you're not telling us Dave?

 

[Gollum]

If he tells us, he'll have to kill us all!

 

[Joe DeFuria]

My suspicion is that the next parts from ATI will be .15

If that's the case, I would expect that ATI would be fabbing a "true" Radeon 9500 chip. Having the R-300 chip (with 4 pipes disabled), using its own power supply, on a flip-chip package always souded too expensive to me on a board targeted at the sub $200 market

It would not surprise me for ATI to come out with a 0.15 chip that is designed "only" for the 128 bit bus, 4 DX9 pixel pipes, etc.

They could probably clock it faster than the current 9500 chip, and it would be cheaper all around (including PCB design) to boot.

Addition:

Most people have already commented that it doesn't make much sense to buy the current 9500 at $179 when the 9500 Pro is at, what, $199? An actual 9500 chip that is "only" 70 million or so transistors could probably be MSRPd at $149 or so. At that price, it is a viable alternative to the 9500 Pro, and yet not really encroaching on the 9000 products...

 

[T2k]

I'll be surprised if the next chip will be on 130 nano. The first 130 will be the r400, I believe.

 

[jvd]

mabye febuary would bring us a .13 r400 ? i think that would be a huge huge kick in the face of nvidia. and of course i'd be really broke .

 

[T2k]

mabye febuary would bring us a .13 r400 ? i think that would be a huge huge kick in the face of nvidia. and of course i'd be really broke .

Definitely not.

R400 supposed to be announced around July-Aug timeframe.

 

[Geeforcer]

mabye febuary would bring us a .13 r400 ? i think that would be a huge huge kick in the face of nvidia. and of course i'd be really broke .

And maybe March would bring us a .09 R500.

I would be surprised if February would bring us anything .13 (from ATI), let alone R400.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

To be clear, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 0.13 part from ATI in the Spring...but I would be surprised if it was a replacement for R-300. I would expect the 0.13 part to either be a notebook part (M10), new value part (RV350), or possibly a cost reduced version of R-300 for the mid-range products.

Definitely not an R-400!

 

[T2k]

AFAIK, last spring Orton said (some investors meeting?) after R300 the mobile parts will arrive on spring '03 and the R400 on next summer.

I can't remember exactly how he drew it...

 

[Geeforcer]

To be clear, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 0.13 part from ATI in the Spring...but I would be surprised if it was a replacement for R-300. I would expect the 0.13 part to either be a notebook part (M10), new value part (RV350), or possibly a cost reduced version of R-300 for the mid-range products.

Definitely not an R-400!

In other words, no high-end .13 chips? This does make sense to me: I could see ATI moving their less complex designs to .13 first and working their way through their portfolio. (As opposed to you-know-who, which went other way around).

 

[Joe DeFuria]

In other words, no high-end .13 chips?

Right...not until R-400 IMO.

Relatively speaking, nVidia and ATI will not be selling boat-loads of the "enthusiast" chips. So moving R-300 to 0.13 really doesn't make too much sense to me...considering the 9700 Pro's current market posistion. It has already been out for several months as the clear technology and performance leader and it will be at least still be "competitive" with the NV30 in February, even if ATI does absolutely nothing to it.

The bulk of the cash is going to come from the lower priced parts, and it is more important to shave costs there (by migrating the line to 0.13 microns, or creating a genuine 4 pipline chip for the 9500) so the profit margins are as high as possible.

 

[Username]

In other words, no high-end .13 chips? This does make sense to me: I could see ATI moving their less complex designs to .13 first and working their way through their portfolio. (As opposed to you-know-who, which went other way around).

Which, IMO is the correct path to take. It's always better to grind your teeth on your low volume parts, then move over when you are ready. Getting your partners ready for a high volume part and not delivering is pretty debilitating for nearly any company.

 

[demalion]

My guess from about 2 months ago[/url]]
350 denotes a new design. So, the 9500 with the features we've been told in no way fits the RV350 monicker (atleast on .15) . Remember, the RV250 is a different design in significant ways from the R200.

This isn't to say that it won't be limited to the R300 featureset (i.e., a power consumption saving and feature limited in relation to the R350 chip design), just that it will be a different design to achieve it.

The 9500 can be called a R300 (and the rumors for the pro version seem to indicate it is a R300) pretty much, or a RV300 if they really want. The name in that case doesn't matter, it would just signify whether they consider the "crippled" R300 core used as deserving a different name. I'm pretty sure they would, as I think the "crippled" early Radeons were named the same way, then replaced with actual "crippled by design" chips later.

So, again, my opinions:

R350 - workstation card, could be introduced as soon as they finish it, because there is plenty of ceiling in workstation card prices to leave the R300 breathing room. This would also let them keep the performance crown, really (if the R350 can manage this against the NV30). Would fit the digitimes article in a way that makes sense to me.

RV350 - dx 9 part designed for "value". With the R300, I don't see a place for it in the desktop (The RV250 came out a year after the R200), so I foresee it only in the mobile market initially (if it is a .13 part). Depending on the featureset, it might replace one or more "R300" designs at a later date on the desktop if it cheaper for ATi to do so by then, but there doesn't seem to be any requirement that it has to fit this design niche.
Of course, ATi could exceed my (our?) expectations again and manage a mobile part on .15, but how many rabbits can they have in that hat?

R300 - with the yields they seem to be getting, I don't see them introducing anything else into the consumer desktop space, since they seem to have all the niches covered from 9500 to 9700 Pro.

RV300 - maybe the "crippled" 9500 chip is called this, maybe not. I think it likely that it is, but I don't think it really matters much.

Follow the link for a discussion of this both before and after that post....I don't think our viewpoints have changed much, or our info. Except with nVidia taking such (to my perception) extremes in the consumer space my reasoning for saying the R350 wouldn't be a consumer part in the spring looks a bit shakier.

Just to save some time rehashing what we've...hashed...before. I think.

 

[arjan de lumens]

A guess: if the next ATI part is .15 micron, it could well be the same R300 core, only equipped with a bigger heatsink and DDR2 memory, and clocked a bit higher. If NV30 is 20% faster than the 9700 Pro, then ATI needs to clock up by >20% to beat NV30 performance; which seems to be just within the capabilites of the R300 core ....

 

[Joe DeFuria]

A guess: if the next ATI part is .15 micron, it could well be the same R300 core...

Could be true of a board-level product...but we're talking about new chips being taped out. ATI wouldn't have to tape-out a new chip for that....

....except maybe if they had to do some last minute tweaking to the memory interface for the best operation with DDR-II memory.