Maxwell Gen 1

[Fire$torm]

Bad news. Looks like TSMC is failing constantly (still) and won't be able to make 20nm GPU chips for AMD or Nvidia for quite awhile yet. Without it, Nvidia's Maxwell's won't be nearly as tempting. Same for AMD. TSMC has been trying for quite awhile now and they just keep screwing it all up

What is their issue? Are the yields too low or are they unable to fab the wafers at all?

[finalfugue]

Bad news. Looks like TSMC is failing constantly (still) and won't be able to make 20nm GPU chips for AMD or Nvidia for quite awhile yet. Without it, Nvidia's Maxwell's won't be nearly as tempting. Same for AMD. TSMC has been trying for quite awhile now and they just keep screwing it all up

Sooo, on the plus side my 750 Ti's will still look pretty sweet for some time to come?

Another one (larger, more fans, FTW edition) on a special approximately the same price as the last "short" superclocked one at NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc..._-14487028-L0D

[John P. Myers]

What is their issue? Are the yields too low or are they unable to fab the wafers at all?

Yep yields. They've been working on it for like 2 years now and still suck. Meanwhile Intel, Samsung and Global Foundaries are making stuff at 14nm right this second, laughing their asses off at TSMC. TSMC has always seemed to me to be the dumb kid in the group, but this has gone way past that into the realm of incompetence. Word has it Nvidia had to rework some of their Maxwell chip designs to stay at 28nm. They're not happy in the least. If they can't get someone who has a clue what they're doing, TSMC may end up having to shut their doors over this eventually. And even if they do figure it out, i shudder to think what will happen when they try the next smaller die shrink after 20nm.

Pisses me off. I hate Nvidia, but i've been looking forward to some good power efficient Maxwell GPUs

[zombie67]

I hope TSMC resolves this and eventually catches up to their competition. Less suppliers is not good for us.

[Fire$torm]

Sounds like TSMC needs to stop being cheap and hire some intelligent talent at ridiculously high wages. Long term, they would lose a LOT LESS money. I hate bean counters. (Quasi apologies to any bean counters on the forums).

[finalfugue]

Looks like there's quite a bit of turmoil in the foundries world ATM:

http://techreport.com/news/26336/glo...ess-to-finfets

Would love to be a fly on the wall in a few executive offices right now. Wonder who is going to move where, when? I'd be more disappointed about the new Maxwell delay, but considering I'm pretty broke now, part of me is glad my wallet has more time to recover .

[zombie67]

Wasn't there some noise about Apple building their own chips? Did that mean their own factory? Or just taking their own design from Samsung to some place like TSMC? Apple's volumes are a pretty large share of the market. And another manufacturer would be a good thing.

[DrPop]

I thought I read somewhere about Intel being willing to start opening up their fabs for bidders . . . I have nothing to back that up but a vague memory of some online article, though. Wonder if Intel will sell some fab time to NVidia? Highly doubt they would sell AMD any, even at top dollar though!

[John P. Myers]

Wasn't there some noise about Apple building their own chips? Did that mean their own factory? Or just taking their own design from Samsung to some place like TSMC? Apple's volumes are a pretty large share of the market. And another manufacturer would be a good thing.

Yeah Apple is expected to have TSMC make their 20nm processors, then switch to Global Foundries for their 14nm processors so they can pat themselves on the back for not using Samsung processors even though GF is making the processors with tech they licensed from Samsung. Good job there, Apple :rollseyes: I also heard Apple was going to start making their own chips and that they've "bought into" a fab. Whether that's for mass production or so they can more easily create/test designs i'm not sure yet, though going from nothing to making all of their own chips, especially at Apple's volume, seems like an incredibly daunting task. Hopefully for them the results would be better than their attempt at maps :/ However, i've also heard Apple wants to make their own GPUs. Maybe that's their intention? Maybe both? I guess we'll see.

Something i've seen no one mention though is with Apple using TSMC for 20nm instead of Samsung, it's now just 1 more (major) thing of Apple's not made in America, since Samsung was making Apple's processors in Austin, TX. So much for Apple's "Made in the USA" PR media storm they started last year

Also even though TSMC is sucking it hard trying to make 20nm GPU wafers, CPUs are easier to make so i don't really see a terribly high error rate there, though it won't take much of one to really cripple their ability to produce enough volume.

TSMC was supposed to've had 20nm ready in time for the GTX 750/750 Ti and for AMD's R9 290/290X. They didn't, but these companies had to release something. TSMC's 20nm abilities are so awful that even with the chips that do work, they're less efficient than the 28nm chips.

[Fire$torm]

Looks like there's quite a bit of turmoil in the foundries world ATM:

http://techreport.com/news/26336/glo...ess-to-finfets

Would love to be a fly on the wall in a few executive offices right now. Wonder who is going to move where, when? I'd be more disappointed about the new Maxwell delay, but considering I'm pretty broke now, part of me is glad my wallet has more time to recover .

Wow, there had to be a ton of closed door wrangling goings on to make all that come together....