Author/Editor: Above Q

According to South Korean media reports, NVIDIA recently confirmed that the next-generation GPU chip code-named Ampere will be manufactured by Samsung in South Korea, using its latest 7nm EUV EUV process.

The NVIDIA GPU has been the exclusive foundry of TSMC for many years. This time, the replacement of the foundry has quickly attracted attention, and it has also raised a new question: Is NVIDIA going to completely abandon TSMC and invest in Samsung?

In addition, on the newly released RTX 20 Super series graphics card, some GPU chips were found to be printed with the word Korea, and the official explanation is that there is also a package in Korea.

Debora Shoquist, Executive Vice President of NVIDIA, clarified in a recent statement: “The report is incorrect. NVIDIA's next-generation GPUs will continue to be manufactured at TSMC. NVIDIA has used both TSMC and Samsung Foundry, and next-generation GPU products are also planning to continue to use both plants. ”

The reason NVIDIA does this is not hard to guess. Although TSMC's technology is advanced and has been working well with NVIDIA, TSMC, Apple, Huawei and many other large customers have to share TSMC's production line. AMD processors and graphics cards have also been handed over to TSMC. The pressure can be imagined. NVIDIA definitely does not want to. Keep the eggs in a basket and avoid possible cost, yield, and capacity issues.

In addition, although Samsung's technology is slightly inferior to TSMC, it is also at the top level. The 7nm EUV is about to be mass-produced, and 5nm has already been fixed. It is not a problem to accept some NVIDIA GPU orders.

However, although the two processes are nominally the same, there will be such differences. NVIDIA will certainly carry out more extensive debugging to ensure that the two GPUs are as consistent as possible, but it is impossible to guarantee 100% consistency, such as voltage, Frequency, overclocking, etc.

At first, the A9 processor in Apple's iPhone 6S had two versions of TSMC 16nm and Samsung 14nm. The result was some difference, and it was ridiculed as a lottery. ”