VIA dual-core Nano chips also en route

Jun 15, 2010 14:48 GMT  ·  By

Despite the fact that it has been making AMD's and NVIDIA's GPU for years, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) currently doesn't exactly have the most sublime of reputations, all because it has seen a great deal of problems with its 40nm manufacturing process. This should have matured last year, but yield and manufacturing issues persisted until not long ago. Only recently has wafer capacity actually improved.

To finally put a stop to all of these problems, TSMC announced plans to drastically expand 40nm capacity. Said plans, however, seemed to suggest that this move is meant to not only cope with 40nm GPU demand, but also with future orders. It seems that the foundry already knows what it will use the extra facilities for.

As surprising as it may sound, TSMC will, according to a report published by Digitimes, be tasked with the manufacture of the Ontario processors from Advanced Micro Devices, as well as VIA's dual-core Nano parts. Orders should start being placed during the first quarter of 2011, just around the time when the new generation of desktop and laptop chips are slated to arrive.

This report is consistent with the one that Digitimes made around the same time last month. Until early May, it was assumed that Globalfoundries would handle the Fusion manufacture, but rumors arose that exploiting TSMC's 40nm bulk process was also part of AMD's plans. Considering that TSMC even intends to spend roughly $1.6 billion to increase production capacity, this may very well happen. Digitimes' sources even believe that the expansion plans themselves were a consequence of these deals.

Regardless of how events progress, expanding 40nm capacity will, at the very least, finally resolve the low inventory issues that have been plaguing both NVIDIA and AMD for months. The report doesn't actually state whether or not Globalfoundries will be completely uninvolved in the making of Ontario chips.