TSMC HAS REPORTEDLY fixed its yield issues with its 40nm manufacturing process, you know the one that all the new GPUs from AMD and Nvidia rely on. This should hopefully mean that there won’t be any more shortages of GPUs, at least for the ones that are already in production.
The Digitimes story suggests that TSMC has gotten the yields for its 40nm parts up to the same level as its 65nm parts, which if true is great news as the 65nm manufacturing process is quite mature by now. This is all according to TSMC’s senior VP of operations, Mark Liu and hopefully we can take his word for it.
In related news, TSMC has just completed its new factory building, which is known as Phase 5 and will house TSMC’s 28nm manufacturing node. It’s part of TSMC’s Fab 12 located in Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan. Phase 5 is set to start volume production of 28nm wafers in the third quarter of this year. Hopefully TSMC will have fewer issues with its 28nm manufacturing process than it has had with the 40nm process.
The company is also planning its next step, which predictably is called Phase 6. This fab is said to be for 22nm products, although this is most likely a couple of years away since construction hasn’t started as yet. So, who will be first with 28nm products? Well, Nvidia could do with having Fermi re-spun at 28nm if nothing else, but by the looks of things it can’t afford to wait until TSMC has gotten its production lines up and running.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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