Nvidia Places 7nm And 5nm Orders For Next-Gen Ampere GPUs

According to a recent report from DigiTimes, it looks like Nvidia is splitting new orders for next-gen GPUs between two companies. 

Nvidia is ordering products based on Ampere and Hopper architectures from both TSMC and Samsung rather than just one company. This could be a smart way for them to avoid putting all their eggs in one basket. 

Who Will Be Producing Ampere GPUs?

Nvidia has put in a huge 7nm order for Ampere graphics cards which rumors suggest will include the RTX 3080 line.

Nvidia’s 5nm process will be reserved for 2021 for Hopper – the microarchitecture which should succeed Ampere. It looks like Nvidia will still be using TSMC for this. 

Why Is Nvidia Using Samsung?

The report suggests that TSMC will still be the primary source of chips for Nvidia GPUs. The Nvidia partner looks like it should have enough capacity to fulfill big orders from Nvidia. 

However, it was recently reported that TSMC will also be working with Apple processors as well, so this may be a reason behind Nvidia’s decision to use Samsung. 

TSMC will be producing Apple’s 5nm ARM-based processors and also AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series of CPUs. It’s fair to say TSMC has some big projects on its hands. 

What Will Samsung Produce for Nvidia?

DigiTimes reports that anonymous sources say Nvidia is enlisting Samsung to produce lower-end Ampere graphics cards. This should help to lessen the burden on TSMC and will also help to boost the yield of both foundries. 

Low-end Ampere graphics cards will reportedly use Samsung’s 7nm EUV or 8nm process nodes. Samsung has this year moved towards a new and improved 5nm EUV manufacturing process so it’ll be interesting to see if that ends up in Nvidia GPUs. 

When Will Nvidia Ampere And Hopper GPUs Be Released?

At the moment, we’re not sure of an exact release date. However, Nvidia’s GTC is going ahead online on May 14th. It’s expected that Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang will finally reveal more details about 7nm Ampere GPUs during that event.

Details of the Hopper cards are a bit harder to predict considering we still don’t even know much about Ampere at the moment.  

Rumors suggest that Nvidia will launch Ampere in the third quarter of 2020 and Hopper will come out next year. However, it’s entirely possible that both architectures will be delayed due to the current world events. 

Of course, if we hear anything else about either Ampere or Hopper, we will keep you in the loop.