Nvidia to Use Samsung Foundry 14nm FinFET process over TSMC's 16nm FinFET

[ahhming]

Park Yu-ak, an analyst at Meritz Securities, said, "Global AP makers are likely to focus on lowering the cost of production this year in order to offset a decline in AP prices." He added, "Samsung's system semiconductor business is going to mass produce and supply chips to Apple, Qualcomm, and Nvidia starting in the second quarter of this year. As a result, the Korean tech giant is projected to exhibit stellar performance."

 

According to Business Korea, Nvidia will dump TSMC's 16nm FinFET process and use Samsung's 14nm FinFET process instead.

Good year ahead for Samsung foundry, supplying chips to apple, qualcomm and now Nvidia.

 

 

source:

 

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/8864/leading-ap-production-samsung-expected-lead-ap-production-supplying-qualcomm-apple

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-samsung-14nm-apple-qualcomm,28493.html#xtor=RSS-181

[WereCat]

So Samsung will in the end make chips both for AMD and NVIDIA? Im not sure if I believe that.

[LAwLz]

So Samsung will in the end make chips both for AMD and NVIDIA? Im not sure if I believe that.

Why not? AMD and Nvidia have shared manufacturer before.

[WereCat]

Why not? AMD and Nvidia have shared manufacturer before.

Because if I am not wrong Samsung is having some problems with 14nm and they want to manufacture for themselves + AMD and if you throw NVIDIA at them too I am not sure if they can handle all that at once.

 

EDIT:

I dont know how big fab they have and how much chips they can manufacture at once.

[CommandMan7]

Hopefully the 14nm tech can help AMD come back in CPU's, I'm sick of Intel price gouging the CPU markets. 

 

I dont know how big fab they have and how much chips they can manufacture at once.

 

They can manufacture:

 

 

Of that figure, Samsung plans to have an installed finFET capacity of 10,000 to 15,000 wspm by year’s end, according to the firm.

http://semiengineering.com/whos-winning-the-finfet-foundry-race/

 

That's about 13% of the total industry maximum, but those figures also include 20 and 16 nm. It does look like they may have supply issues from what I see.

[marldorthegreat]

TBH AMD need to get a power efficient architecture. I bet maxwell @ 14nm, the 980 would consume 100 - 115 watts of power

[Lazmarr]

Why not? AMD and Nvidia have shared manufacturer before.

Plus with Nvidia sueing Samsung for infinging on its patents I don't think it's in Nvidias best interests to use Samsung...

[LAwLz]

Plus with Nvidia sueing Samsung for infinging on its patents I don't think it's in Nvidias best interests to use Samsung...

Well Nvidia might not have a choice, and Samsung wasn't against making things for Apple while they were in a fight.

[Brainless906]

Well Nvidia might not have a choice, and Samsung wasn't against making things for Apple while they were in a fight.

 

BREAKING NEW! Samsung denies nvidia the right to buy 14nm chips! They are quoted saying "we dont like money"

 

/sarcasm 

 

Business is business and money is money.

[dizmo]

Hopefully the 14nm tech can help AMD come back in CPU's, I'm sick of Intel price gouging the CPU markets. 

 

 

They can manufacture:

http://semiengineering.com/whos-winning-the-finfet-foundry-race/

 

That's about 13% of the total industry maximum, but those figures also include 20 and 16 nm. It does look like they may have supply issues from what I see.

Intel doesn't really gouge. Their chips are considerably better, and thus, cost more.

They're also not based on three year old chip sets

[Unlikelyjoker]

Why would Samsung make anything for patent trolls?

Nvidia don't deserve anything from Samsung for being c*nts

[patrickjp93]

Well Nvidia might not have a choice, and Samsung wasn't against making things for Apple while they were in a fight.

Nvidia has a choice, but the other 2 are GloFo and Intel. It has to pick the least of 4 evils: TSMC (the failure), Samsung (the legal problem), GloFo (the unstable bastard child), and Intel (the elitist elite waiting to take a bite out of Nvidia).

[patrickjp93]

Why would Samsung make anything for patent trolls?

Nvidia don't deserve anything from Samsung for being c*nts

Samsung deserves to get sued, especially after they brought in a tiny OEM desktop seller to the fight to pick on.

[FireFox]

So Samsung will in the end make chips both for AMD and NVIDIA? Im not sure if I believe that.

 

Well believe it because TSMC make the chips for both NVIDIA and AMD and have done for years.

[FireFox]

Plus with Nvidia sueing Samsung for infinging on its patents I don't think it's in Nvidias best interests to use Samsung...

 

It is also not in NVIDIAs best interest to rely on a foundry that can't achieve the nodes NVIDIA need, if Samsung is the best out there without charging a vast sum *cough Intel* then they are the ideal choice.

[Norman_the_Owl]

Who at samsung really cares if their phones are doing shit, they're totally making bank from this

[bcredeur97]

neat... so when can we expect 14nm graphics cards to be available?? that is my question? end of the year? next year??

 

so tired of 28nm; its so last year. (/sarcasm)

[patrickjp93]

It is also not in NVIDIAs best interest to rely on a foundry that can't achieve the nodes NVIDIA need, if Samsung is the best out there without charging a vast sum *cough Intel* then they are the ideal choice.

Intel wouldn't necessarily charge too much if it could get something more valuable than Nvidia's money, like fundamental IP for tessellation and polymorph hardware engines. I'd argue it's actually stupid long patent law which keeps Intel from competing further in graphics than it does, though defeating the Tegra X1 14W to 10W, 2 cores vs 8, with HD 5500, Intel at a disadvantage of 64 stream processors to boot, is just incredible.

[patrickjp93]

Just to clear the air, neither TSMC, Samsung, or GloFo is actually at 14nm. Only Intel is. https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/3884-who-will-lead-10nm.html 

They're just at 20nm with FF and using clever marketing.

[Pomfinator]

so tired of 28nm; its so last year. (/sarcasm)

I cannot believe how long we've had the 28nm process out, the 7970 was out in Jan 2012, and the 680 in March.

[bcredeur97]

I cannot believe how long we've had the 28nm process out, the 7970 was out in Jan 2012, and the 680 in March.

yeah. its getting old. I skipped 28nm however. Waiting on 20/16/14nm to come out so i can upgrade my 6950/6970(s) which are a whopping 40nm

[ACatWithThumbs]

Not really trustworthy when they still mention Apple.
Apple switched to TSMC last year which was the reason Maxwell is 28nm because they used all the 20nm fabs for the Iphone 6.

[Pomfinator]

Not really trustworthy when they still mention Apple.

Apple switched to TSMC last year which was the reason Maxwell is 28nm because they used all the 20nm fabs for the Iphone 6.

Partly, but also because TSMC had outrageously bad yields on larger chips.  Who knows maybe Nvidia was planning to bring out the big daddy GM200, but TSMC just threw a wrench into it cause the yields were so low.  We don't know since the 680 was the first time they turned the x60 class card into a flagship.

[patrickjp93]

I cannot believe how long we've had the 28nm process out, the 7970 was out in Jan 2012, and the 680 in March.

To be fair it has been tweaked and made denser, so that leaves a little breathing room in the future. Still, I wish the industry had tried to learn FinFET on the 28nm process instead of trying to push down at the same time. It was just a recipe for disaster given the problems Intel had with getting Broadwell out the door.

[Dezz]

yeah. its getting old. I skipped 28nm however. Waiting on 20/16/14nm to come out so i can upgrade my 6950/6970(s) which are a whopping 40nm

Oh.. Hi big brother... 6850  over here