NVIDIA Spurs TSMC vs. UMC Price War

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, June 30, 2006, 10:25 AM EDT

DigiTimes reports that NVIDIA is currently enjoying a price war between TSMC and UMC as each foundry fights for the company's 80u business. Although historically an ATI-focused foundry, UMC is now aggressively pricing their 80u capacity in an attempt to secure NVIDIA's orders for that process and steal business away from TSMC. Here, it will be interesting to see how TSMC reacts as that foundry is responsible for roughly 90% of NVIDA's products. However, even if NVIDIA grants the 80u business to UMC, the high-profile 90u business used for all mainstream and flagship level products will certainly remain in the capable hands of TSMC.

"Nvidia expects to start producing its HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) G73-B1 graphics card manufactured on an 80nm process at the end of the third quarter, and coming next will be its low-end G72 graphics processing unit (GPU), the sources said. While migration to an 80nm process will cut down production costs, Nvidia has no plans to adopt the 80nm process for its high-end G71 GPUs because the shipment volume is not high, and making them at a more mature process delivers better yields, the sources said."

Tags: Nvidia, TSMC, Price, Ice, UMC, price war, id, AR

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com