14 DAY TRIAL // Since TSMC has begun to manufacture 28nm chips, people interested in what future GPUs will accomplish might be interested in learning of the most recent report regarding the 28HP.
28HP is the first process that TSMC will make with the High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology, instead of the silicon oxynitride (SiON) that 40nm GPUs employ.
They should have much lower gate leakage and, thus, a lower power draw and higher clock speeds.
TSMC managed this through a material that features a high dielectric constant, compared to silicon dioxide gate dielectric.
This report says that, though AMD refused to speak on the matter, 'sources' within TSMC itself stated that the 28HP HKMG can enable performance boosts of up to 45% over the technology used in the last two generations of graphics cards.
Needless to say, this is a substantial progress, even knowing that smaller process geometries usually do make possible faster, smaller and cheaper chips.
Of course, it isn't a given that the upcoming graphics processors from NVIDIA and Advanced Micro Devices will actually sport such a big performance jump.
The boost would, after all, imply a fairly high power consumption, so the two companies may favor power efficiency first.
It is also worth noting that the high-end graphics cards of today aren't really challenged overmuch by the latest games, so trying to make the next batch of cards as strong as can be could prove to be a rather unnecessary effort.
Then again, even if it does involve a higher power consumption than usual, some of AMD's and NVIDIA's partners might decide to make that sort of beast anyway.
Now the only possible problem that could strike both AMD and NVIDIA in equal measures is that of low chip yields.
TSMC has problems with its 40nm process for a long time and there is a real worry that the same will happen with 28nm.