Will the real winner be decided by supply constraints?

[nelg]

Will the real winner be decided by supply constraints?

I just read this article. It seems that even if demand is high, there may be a ceiling on sales due to supply constraints. Maybe the near term success of the Nv40 and R420 will come down to supply contract and yields. Does anyone think that Nvidia’s move to IBM will hurt their relationship with TSMC? Will ATI’s increased sales and Xbox 2 contract (to be fabed at TSMC) help them secure a larger portion of capacity?

Chip manufacturing capacity is getting tight, but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) says it still has wafers for sale. The only catch is that customers must promise not to send a design to one of its competitors.

 

[PaulS]

NVIDIA moving some production to IBM won't have had a huge impact on their relationship with TSMC, since they still do most of their manufacturing there anyway. The only difference is that they probably won't get the kind of preferential treatment they used to get - they'll certainly not be refused capacity out of spite, though. Money talks.

 

[nelg]

The reason I thought that this was interesting was the impression that ATI and Nvidia may both be fighting over the same piece of pie. Preferential treatment may be what determines ability to meet demand.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Yes, supply will be a huge factor in deciding the victor this round....

...but we won't be able to find that out until JULY!!!!!

 

[dizietsma]

Yes, supply will be a huge factor in deciding the victor this round....

...but we won't be able to find that out until JULY!!!!!

Are you still beating the July drum DW ?

Remind me why you kee psaying this again !

 

[ANova]

I think we'll start to see 6800Us by the end of May but only in very limited quantities. The X800 Pro however, should be available everywhere by then with the XT to follow shortly after.

 

[bloodbob]

Chip manufacturing capacity is getting tight, but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) says it still has wafers for sale. The only catch is that customers must promise not to send a design to one of its competitors.

Doesn't ATI also have some chips fabbed at UMC so shouldn't this apply to ATI?

 

[Dave Baumann]

AFAIK 9200 is the only design with UMC at the moment.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Are you still beating the July drum DW ?

Remind me why you kee psaying this again !

Because I think it's the truth and I figure SOMEONE should be trying to tell the truth for nVidia since they have such a difficcult time doing it on their own.

 

[nelg]

Chip manufacturing capacity is getting tight, but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) says it still has wafers for sale. The only catch is that customers must promise not to send a design to one of its competitors.

Doesn't ATI also have some chips fabbed at UMC so shouldn't this apply to ATI?

I understand that to mean a single chip design not a IHV's entire line-up. Look at the rumors surrounding the Nv40. It is being made by IBM but rumors have TSMC working on a shrunk down version. While this benefits TSMC, I would assume that they would like to prevent this from happening in reverse.

 

[nelg]

More talk of capacity problems. Although related to chipsets.

 

[mikechai]

Is it true that NV40 is the only chip fabbed by IBM while the rest of the NV4x chips in TSMC ?
________
Gong bongs

 

[ZenOps]

From what I've heard the NV40 was designed and engineered at the IBM plant. IBM is/was aggressively competing against TSMC by trying to sway chipmaking contracts to them... ATi stuck with TSMC for the X800, NVidia more or less jumped ship and went with IBM for the 6800.

NVidia gave the 222 million transitor layout to TSMC later to fab there too (probably after realizing that IBM was not making any reasonable amount of chips) Although the NV40 "taped-out" at IBM quite a while ago, it is generally believed that the NV40 has not "taped-out" at TSMC yet.

Which means all the 6800 chips (or lack of them) will be coming from IBM in the near future until NVidia bargains with TSMC to make some for them. Which may be difficult for Nvidia considering they essentially "dumped" them earlier...

TSMC is strong and big enough to completely ignore the NV40 if the relationship was strained... TSMC is well within their ability to charge NVidia two or three times what they would normally charge to make a chip.

Nvidia has been really, really bad for international business diplomacy... Not only pissing off Microsoft, but now "bread and butter" TSMC.

Nvidia reminds me a lot of George Bush.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Nvidia reminds me a lot of George Bush.

I knew the day would come when politics would start melding into the viddy card discussions here, I just knew it!

I can think of at least one thing Bush and nVidia have in common lately, me animosity.

 

[nelg]

Seems that the 6800UE is going to be a no show

NVIDIA'S NO NAME GPU THAT was supposed to run at 450MHz with some extreme partners and in some extreme cases actually might not get that high.
We have heard that Nvidia might have some problems with chips it's supplying to its special customers such as BGF, Gainward and XFX.

Only these three can actually clock there cards to 450MHz or even more but it seems that Nvidia can not get them chips that can run that high. With the Gainward card, it's easy as this firm will cool it with water and I am pretty sure that you might easily go even beyond that speed with water but the trouble is that other two players plan to use air coolers.

 

[Dave Baumann]

You'll see a few more twists in this story yet, so it seems...

 

[digitalwanderer]

You'll see a few more twists in this story yet, so it seems...

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I don't mind the twists, turns, and the whole bloody graphic world being turned upside down or nothing....but the fact that you always know everything in advance of it actually happening/coming out and are merciless in flaunting your knowledge superiority over us!

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!

 

[nelg]

You'll see a few more twists in this story yet, so it seems...

Do you mean the TSMC version
Just fishing.

 

[gsgrunt]

If yields are low for nv40 that could be an explanation for a limited stream of cards being produced and put into the retail chain, but what we have now is 0 cards in retail.

Do board manufactures need to have a lot of chips available before they can go into production and make a profit? Does anyone have an idea of how many boards need to be produced in a “production runâ€￾ to offset the setup cost ?

Did ATI take a loss just to get a few x800Pros in to retail first?

Am I way of track here?

Could there be a backlog of nv40 boards sitting warehouses waiting for a final driver before release?