Next-Gen Nvidia 7nm GPU planned for 2019: Report
Nvidia’s latest RTX graphics card series is based on the 12nm process, but the company will soon move to the densest node, according to a new report. Yes, you heard it right. AMD may be launching first, but the green team is also ready and going to jump on the 7nm bandwagon with a brand-new GPU in 2019.
AMD has just unveiled the 7nm Radeon Instinct MI60 designed for AI and machine learning. Touted as the world’s first and fastest 7nm data center chip, the MI60 is based on the Vega 20 GPU featuring 4,096 stream processors and PCIe 4.0 capability.
Of course, Nvidia won’t want to allow AMD to dominate the lucrative data center market. After all, it’s the same market which it provides with the $399,000 DGX-2 system and Volta-powered Tesla GPUs. To say if reports of Nvidia planning a 7nm GPU for 2019 come true, that GPU will likely be aimed at the AI segment.
Expect Nvidia to unveil details of their first 7nm products in early 2019. As for gaming cards, we’re not sure when they’ll be using the 7nm technology, but whenever they do, it’ll be a huge jump in performance over the current-gen GeForce GPUs.
The report itself comes from DigiTimes, which outlines large clients that will be utilizing TSMC’s 7nm node for “massive orders” in 2019. The list of heavyweight clients includes Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, and Nvidia.
Nvidia’s current 12nm Turing and 16nm Pascal GPUs are all already fabbed at TSMC. However, the TSMC silicon will soon be powering the rival AMD’s 7nm lineup. In addition to Radeon Instinct GPUs, AMD’s next-generation lineup will include the 7nm Zen 2 CPU with the recently announced 64-core Epyc server chips first out the door.
TSMC will reportedly complete over 50 tape-outs for 7nm process by the end of 2018, with the figure doubling by the end of next year. The foundry is also quite optimistic about its business prospects moving forward despite the US-China trade war. It’s expecting 7nm chip sales to surpass 20% in the Q4 of this year, and soar further for the whole 2019.
