Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is a crucial partner to several graphics card makers. TSMC is responsible for the making of both AMD’s and NVIDIA’s graphics circuits, which means that if TSMC has TSMC problems, so has AMD and NVIDIA. Alas that is exactly what has happened as the semiconductor manufacturer is having some serious problems with its new 40nm process. Since our last report things haven’t improved much.
TSMC is suffering from poor yields and problem with leakage in the new process. Poor yields means that that a large portion of the chips of the ready wafer are simply sub par or broken.
It’s no secret that new manufacturing technologies are suffering from lower yields to begin with, TSMC’s problems with the 40nm process is worse than that.
MSI Radeon HD 4770
A quick look around for the market’s first 40nm graphics card, Radeon HD 4770, does give you a hint of the problems at TSMC. That TSMC is also trying to get the manufacturing of NVIDIA’s new mobile graphics circuits under control isn’t exactly speeding things up.
When and if TSMC gains better control of its 40nm processor will affect the launch of the next generation graphics cards since these are supposed to come in at 40 with impressive performance and features.
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