author: Michael Kulakowski
Nvidia Prepares to Manufacture GPU With 5nm Chips Before AMD
Nvidia is preparing to manufactiure new Hopper family GPUs. The company has booked 5nm chip production lines for the whole next year, trying to stay ahead of competitors at AMD.
Nvidia is feeling the competition from AMD breathing down its neck. According to DigiTimes (via WccfTech), in order to get ahead of the rival, the company, taking advantage of its huge budget, has reserved a production line of the 5nm technology chips, belonging to Taiwanese semiconductor company of TSMC, for the entire 2021. Additional orders in the category will most likely also be fulfilled for Samsung. The chips will be used in the new Hopper family of graphics chips, whose first models are to be released within a dozen or so months.
Nvidia will thus jump directly to chips manufactured in the 5 nm process from the barely adopted 7 nm technology which, according to still unconfirmed reports, powers Ampere cards, to introduced in the second half of this year. This is undoubtedly an exceptional step in the strategy of the company, which so far has been very cautious about introducing quick and revolutionary changes in its own products and has been accused of stagnating and cutting off tickets from its market dominance.
As the analysts note, the change in Nvidia's policy is directly linked to the strengthening of AMD. The company is aggressive and wants to make life difficult for the rival because it is aware of the fact that the competitor is also preparing to switch to 5nm technology.
So far we know little about the Hopper family of cards, which are named after Grace Hopper, one of the pioneers of global IT. However, they may be dropped from the company's schedule for 2021. Production problems or further complications due to logistical constraints resulting from the global pandemic may cause a delay. In such case, Nvidia will probably release an additional "stopgap" generation of cards using the Ampere architecture.