14 DAY TRIAL // There have been a series of rumors and speculations regarding AMD's upcoming 40nm-based products, but it now appears that we have the very first leaked details that are somewhat official. That is because of a listing on the company's own website, where the chip maker details the products that are supported by the ATI Catalyst drivers. The list includes a number of present and past ATI graphics chips, as well as a number of future products, due to be released. These include the RV740 graphics processing unit and the M93 and M97 graphics chips, designed for mobile computer systems.
According to the webpage detailing AMD's Catalyst PC Vendor ID List, the company's Catalyst drivers also provide support for the upcoming graphics cards that will be enabled by the highly anticipated RV740 graphics processing unit. Despite no official technical specifications being available at this time, the aforementioned GPU is expected to boast a 40nm process technology. This will enable the Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker to provide its customers with higher performance products that are also capable of providing a higher level of energy efficiency.
The listing also includes the M93 and M97 GPUs, designed to bring the graphics support required by next-generation portable computer systems. As with the RV740, the technical specifications of the two mobile GPUs are yet to become official, but it's likely that these two are also built on the 40nm process technology, developed by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
No word on an official release date for these products, but given that they are already supported by ATI's Catalyst drivers, it's possible that the chip maker already has some working samples. These can only mean that the official release is not very far and we could see the first 40nm-based ATI graphics card in the next two months.