ATI Technologies and Nvidia will focus on graphics chips manufactured on a 90nm process technology rather than migrating their production to 80nm this year, due to yield and technology issues for wafer manufacturing, according to first-tier graphics card makers.

Although ATI initially planned to launch graphics chips (RV570, RV560, RV535 and RV505) that adopt an 80nm manufacturing process in the third quarter of this year, the makers expect ATI to first roll out 90nm versions of those chips, as the company has been able to improve its yields on 90nm technology production. Nvidia, for its part, has not finalized its plans whether to migrate to 80nm technology production.

The recently rolled out ATI Radeon x1900 is manufactured on a 90nm process, and the upcoming Radeon x1000 series graphics chips will use the same manufacturing technology, the makers indicated.

Currently, each production batch produces hundreds of units for Radeon x1900, Radeon x1600 and Nvidia GeForce7900 series production, while production for the GeForce 7600 series outputs thousands of chips, the makers said. All of these graphics chips are manufactured on 90nm node.

In comparison, when ATI first began volume shipping its Radeon x1800 to first tier vendors last year, output was less than a hundred units per batch, while output for second-tier vendors was even lower.

Nevertheless, the makers indicated that the graphics chipmakers will still send products manufactured on 80nm node to card vendors for testing in the second half of this year.

By: DocMemory
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