As reported by the Taipei Times, NVIDIA has struck a major blow in the GPU wars with AMD with their next set of GPU powerhouses. According to Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co, the new 7nm NVIDIA Ampere GPUs could set a new benchmark for both performance and power consumption.
NVIDIA is once again entering a design and production partnership with TSMC & Samsung to develop the new Ampere platform using a 7nm base process. These three previously worked together in 2016 to develop the Pascal line and 14nm and 16nm specs. The previous Turing iterations ran on TSMC’s 12nm FinFET manufacturing process, and were developed in partnership with TSMC. These are a step behind rival AMD, whose Navi chips already use a 7nm process.
TSMC, also known as Taiwan Semiconductor, is the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. The company has helped design and produce processors for all manner of devices. SoCs (System on a chip) chipsets that power iPhones and other mobile devices, desktop GPUs and CPUs, you name it, TSMC has probably had a hand in making it. So it stands to reason that they would once again be involved in NVIDIA’s GPU efforts.
Turing GPU architectures already blazed new trails over the last couple of years, which means having the new Ampere tech on deck could be a huge win for NVIDIA. And with the specter of looming climate disaster and the ave of social and economic problems the worst outcomes could bring, more and more companies will face pressure to offer better products with more efficient operation, especially in the power-hungry technology space.
NVIDIA plans to release its Ampere GPUs at the second half of 2020. Expect more details during CES this year. Time will tell whether AMD or NVIDIA manages to come out on top next year. The competition is already pretty heated. These two have been competing in the GPU space in some form for years. Both companies recently debuted new physics simulation APIs as well, with AMD and their FEMFX suite, competing against NVIDIA with their PhysX 5.0.