14 DAY TRIAL // When NVIDIA finally started to ship its DirectX 11-capable graphics adapters, consumers and market watchers alike were quick to notice their low availability and, consequently, highly inflated product prices. Subsequent reports revealed that, predictably, TSMC 40nm yields were behind this situation. Still, over the past weeks, availability seems to have improved, and recent statements made by company executives suggest that things are progressing fairly well, considering the circumstances.
During a recent conference call with financial analysts, David White, NVIDIA executive vice president and chief financial officer, reportedly stated that “supply constraints are finally easing,” while NVIDIA CEO Huang said that the scarcity of the adapters was not so much owed to low yields, but to high demand. Also, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is supposedly making progress, even though 40nm capacity is still not high enough.
"From a supply perspective, we wish we had more 40nm capacity," Huang said. "We are working TSMC really closely. They are doing a fab job. Yields are improving,. Capacities are improving. But we are finding it hard to keep up. Everyone is clamoring to have Fermis out the door. We are working really hard to get Fermis out the door."
Sure enough, a quick search on online retailers obviously shows multiple Fermi models available in stock, at more or less reasonable prices. This is also consistent with another recent statement from NVIDIA, which revealed that hundreds of thousands of cards had been shipped. Of course, it will take some work to catch up to AMD's Radeon HD 5000 Series sales, but the gap at least appears to be lessening.
If the situation keeps improving, perhaps the Santa Clara GPU maker won't have any difficulty in making and selling future cards, such as the GTX 460 and GTX 465. These two adapters will come out over the following months, with the 460 even expected to make an appearance at Computex.