NVIDIA is cozying up very tightly with TSMC leading into its next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU launch later this year, which will power the new GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards... with new reports teasing TSMC will be the sole supplier of NVIDIA's GPUs in 2022.
We all know the issues that NVIDIA has been facing with its current Ampere GPU architecture, which is being fabbed by Samsung on their custom 8nm process. The new GA102 powering the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is chewing upwards of 500W, with some custom models offering up to 1275W of power. This is all a big test for the next-gen GPUs, which are looking at using 600W+ of power.
The inefficient Samsung 8nm node can't compete with TSMC 7nm let alone TSMC's new 5N process node, which should see NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace GPU call home in 2022 and beyond. NVIDIA isn't a stranger to TSMC, it's just been making most of its GeForce GPUs with South Korean rival Samsung, and it hasn't gone so well -- so the big switch back to TSMC is happening -- and a lot of money is exchanging hands, I'm sure.
Business Korea reports: "Accordingly, industry insiders expect TSMC to monopolize orders for all GPUs to be released by NVIDIA in 2022. NVIDIA had difficulties selling its GeForce RTX 3000 series in 2020 due to Samsung Electronics' low production yields. NVIDIA had outsourced the production of data center and consumer PC GPUs to TSMC until 2019. In 2020, it first selected Samsung Electronics as its manufacturing partner for RTX3000 series GPUs in an effort to lower production prices and boost product competitiveness by diversifying suppliers".
