While many NVIDIA GPU aficionados are keeping their fingers crossed for an announcement of a next-generation graphics architecture from NVIDIA later this month, the company could be planning ahead. A report by DigiTimes is now suggesting that the GPU brand may have recently submitted orders for two next-generation GPU architectures to two chipmakers and suppliers.
The suppliers in question are, reportedly, TSMC and Samsung, with the former seemingly receiving the bulk of the orders for the 7nm and 5nm die lithographies. Specifically, NVIDIA had put in a massive order for the Taiwan-based foundry to produce 7nm chips. That will be used to produce the next-generation Ampere GPU lineup, which in turn may include the successor to the current GeForce RTX series lineup.
In addition, the report also says that NVIDIA has also called dibs on a large portion of TSMC’s 5nm process nodes, a move that suggests the GPU company is future-proofing it production lineup for the GPU architecture that is to succeed Ampere, codenamed Hopper.
As for Samsung, the word is that the NVIDIA will be using Samsung’s chips in order to product lower-end Ampera-based graphics card. To that end, Tom’s Hardware thinks that this move could lead to NVIDIA utilising Samsung’s 7nm EUV process nodes first, before ultimately moving over to the Korean giant’s own 5nm EUV fabrications later on.
For now, this is all just rumours and hearsay. Hopefully, we’ll hear something about Ampere during the GTC 2020 keynote, but until then, take this with a large grain of salt.
(Source: DigiTimes via Tom’s Hardware)
