NV30 not taped out yet....

[Guest]

Have not listend to this yet but I have read a number of people say that it has not... Here is a quote.. of what is said

http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/8/20568.html

nv30 status

"It should be available for holiday season"

"Has the NV30 taped out yet?"

"Historically Nvidia done a good job with tapeouts etc... We're in the process of wrapping it up"

"So it has not been taped out yet?"

"We're in the process of wrapping it up so the answer is not"

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=15969433&tid=atyt&sid=15969433&mid=44543

 

[Mephisto]

This could put NVNews, Sharky Extreme, PC Rave and other sites in a bad light, as they claimed the shots they posted are rendered on an NV30 chip, which is impossible as the part doesn't work at all at the moment.

Sad, they seem to have missleaded their readers if this turns out to be true.

This all remembers me on the old BitBoys days, they also posted nice pics rendered in their software simulator.

 

[Brimstone]

Seems Kyle from [H]ard was correct.

 

[Mephisto]

Seems Kyle from [H]ard was correct.

What do you mean?

 

[LittlePenny]

It has been said here before NV30 taped out already, but this was before we had heard about the switch to UMC. I wouldn't mind hearing from Ben6 on this one.

 

[Guest]

I have been questioning the possibility heavily for a while now .... course no one would remmember that. 8)

 

[Brimstone]

Seems Kyle from [H]ard was correct.

What do you mean?

People a while back seemed quite sure about the NV 30 being "taped out". If I recall correctly people questioned a few comments in a [H]ard article claiming otherwise. I don't remember the specific thread.

Who knows even this information might be wrong and the NV 30 could be very close.

 

[Qroach]

It all depends on what they mean by tapped out. They could be including respins when they say, we're just wrapping it up.

 

[Jazz]

Kyle (from hardocp) said that the nv30 wasn't taped out yet and that it had arrived back from the fab and had arrived at .15 instead of at .13 and ben said that he could confirm that it had taped out

Ok im a real n00b can some1 tell me exactly what taped out means, i think it means there first sample back from the fab whether it is working or not, is this correct?

Thanks

heres the thread where kyle comments on it http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1587&highlight=

 

[Guest]

Kyle (from hardocp) said that the nv30 wasn't taped out yet and that it had arrived back from the fab and had arrived at .15 instead of at .13 and ben said that he could confirm that it had taped out

Ok im a real n00b can some1 tell me exactly what taped out means, i think it means there first sample back from the fab whether it is working or not, is this correct?

Thanks

heres the thread where kyle comments on it http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1587&highlight=

Ask RussSchultz he will tell ya all about it.

 

[Guest]

It all depends on what they mean by tapped out. They could be including respins when they say, we're just wrapping it up.

The answer is "not" taped out yet....

 

[MuFu]

This subject was brought up in another thread so I'll just post my response here:

Unfortunately I can't access the stream right now so I'll just take JetLab's word for it; NV30 "has not finished taping out".

What I was wondering is whether he means that they haven't completed the initial tapeout or whether he means that there may be further respins before the ASIC qualifies. It seems to me that within the industry there is some discrepancy in the exact terminology and some people refer to multiple tape-outs (indicative of several silicon respins) whereas others say "tape-out" and they mean the initial upload to the fab for the first mask.

If we take the first meaning, then things might not be as bad as some people think, although "holiday season" sounds like Xmas to me. :-\

Kyle (from hardocp) said that the nv30 wasn't taped out yet and that it had arrived back from the fab and had arrived at .15 instead of at .13 and ben said that he could confirm that it had taped out

As for that... I told Kyle about it via e-mail and he posted it on [H] in a slightly misleading way to get as many fanboys worked up as possible. From what I know, there was an internal rumour at nVidia that suggested that the initial NV30 tape-out pertained to the fabrication of a 0.15u mask. This was accompanied by a lot of gossip over lunch etc that ATi would run away with things, although I never heard anything to suggest that R&D wouldn't be completed by September so we'll have to wait and see what happens. My guess is that they'll ramp sometime in late September and we'll see cards by Xmas. It'd better be good.

MuFu.

 

[rubank]

I´m listening to the conference call as I write this, and I just heard the CEO attest to the fact that nv30 has not taped out. He also refers to nvidias history of being fast to market, and he still has hope they will be able to deliver nv30 for the holiday season.
But the crucial fact is: it hasn´t taped out yet.

This is quite an issue, isn´t it.

 

[OpenGL guy]

Ok im a real n00b can some1 tell me exactly what taped out means, i think it means there first sample back from the fab whether it is working or not, is this correct?

A "tape out" is where you download your physical design databases so that you can create the masks needed for production. Generally, the completion of a tape out is the creation of the masks themselves, which generally runs several hundred thousands of dollars.

 

[jjayb]

Just listened to it myself. The part about not being taped out yet was around the 8 minute 10 second mark for anyone who doesn't want to listen to the whole conference call. In his answer he says one of the areas Nvidia has been very good at is going quickly from tape out to production. Anyone have any figures from their previous cards? Time it took to go from tape out to production on the gforce, gforce2, gforce3, gforce4?

 

[Guest]

This is quite an issue, isn´t it.

Oh very much yes indeed. A bad day for nvidia stockholders. Even worst for nvidia fans.

It means that ATI is at the reins as far as the high end is considered prolly till next year. That means ATIs low end parts will get OEM deals because everyone wants "one of them there Radeon 9XXX". This is how nvidia has managed the market share that it has by maintaining high end parts low end parts like the Radeon 9000 will enjoy a high level of popularity in the OEM...

 

[Gollum]

Chang seemed quite nervous when the NV30 tape-out was brought up, will we really see Nvidia screwing things up after years of product clycles? If they miss this fall and are delayed till winter or even next spring, it would be essentially 2 years between truly new architectures... ouch!

 

[RussSchultz]

This info could fit with the "move to UMC because TSMC sux0rs" rumor, or maybe not.

Such very strange rumors(has taped out, hasn't, .15u, .13u, TSMC, UMC), with confirmations, opposing rumors and opposing confirmations.

I wonder if the real story is a design cycle gone horribly wrong, or some brilliant, yet sick, joke of a marketting disinformation campaign.

Anyways, if they're going to make it for for the holiday season (which means product on the shelves, in my company), they must have wafers entering production right now or within a few weeks at the most. TSMC is supposedly relatively full and has close to a 2-3 month backlogs (though NVIDIA is a big company, so maybe not for them), so much later won't give their OEMs time to manufacture and ship them in time to get them to the shelves.

Of course, Chinese New Year is also a holiday season...

 

[mpegleg]

tapeout to production

Here are the tapeout to production time periods for the past Nvidia chips:

Riva TNT2 - 98 days
GeForce 256 - 104 days
GeForce2/GTS - 102 days
GeForce/MX - 110 days
GeForce3 - 118 days
XGPU - 120 days
GeForce4 - 101 days

So best case if they tape out this week then they will be in production by mid-November.

 

[X-Reaper]

Man oh man, Nvidia investors are not happy with todays news.

http://messages.yahoo.com/?action=q&board=NVDA