If correct, then there are two good reasons:
1. Volume. Takes time.
2. Hard launch. Takes coordination and planning.
If this rumor happens to be true, there's basically no conceivable way that this could be the reason. A reason that actually makes sense would be that there were some showstopping bugs in the silicon that require fixing.What happened... the mighty marchitects at the green team got scared and decided to go for a major redesign ?
Well, it might not necessarily be that, but even just an issue where the computer model of the processor layout didn't translate as well as hoped to the real process, such that a good design on paper failed to operate properly once produced....Or TSMCs 40G not being able to handle something like G300 in 2009...
So with a shrink to 32 nm, they may be able to do a quick x2 chip.
Why do they need a shrink? GT285 is presumably bigger and has a similiar TDP. On the other hand if they "need" an X2 then they're in big trouble....
Why do they need a shrink? GT285 is presumably bigger and has a similiar TDP. On the other hand if they "need" an X2 then they're in big trouble....
Assuming the rumoured 495mm2@40nm
Ouch... Tiles 'R US !
There might be truth in it, that Nvidia is not getting the yields and performance levels (incl. power) out of the 40nm node and are forced to jump to the half-node process (32 nm)
Not entirely true, since TSMC has not been offering 45nm for GPUs. So both TSMC 40nm and Globalfoundries 32nm can be considered full nodes.
Also, I don't know why anyone would take Fudo quoting rumors seriously. ISTM that NV will probably have their DX11 part out in 1Q10.
Actually TSMC considers 40nm and 28nm to be full nodes, but as dkanter nicely points out that's just pure marketing. It does mean that there's an entire ecosystem around it for things like RF, whereas this obviously wasn't the case on 55nm, but that's about it IMO.I believe TSMC still considers 40nm as a half-node, even if it deemphasized 45nm.
Remember there never was a 45G process, only 45LP (and Qualcomm was actually AFAIK the exclusive customer on that). And I have yet to hear anything indicating that 45LP and 40LP aren't both fine in terms of performance/power/etc. (although it turns out there is no performance benefit over 65LP, only power and density) - maybe not yields though, but like every generation that's mostly a question of time.Was 40nm better than 45nm? If so, in light of the current troubles, ick.
...
I refuse to read into any of that crap personally; I'm pretty sure that both IHVs when asked will claim that they're "on track". If there's a problem NV won't be able to hide it for very long.