R520 Taped Out, Yields are Key Risk

ATI has completed test wafers on 90nm at TSMC and has hit its milestones to date for its next generation R520 product due out in Spring 2005, CSFB wrote.

In early November a high-ranking source close to ATI Technologies confirmed that the chip known as the R520 had been taped out, which means that the completed design of the processor had been sent to an ATIs foundry partner.

Key risk ahead is achieving strong yields on 90nm, a point too early to call but potentially less risky since low-k and copper issues were resolved at 130nm. ATI noted that the next two years will see major architectural jumps (likely Pixel Shader 3.0 in 05 and DX10 for Longhorn in 06), raising the bar but requiring execution as well, CFSBs analysts Randy Abrams and Michael Masdea believe.

ATIs current generation high-end visual processing units, such as RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition, are made using 130nm low-k process technology. While it remains to be seen, whether this chip that contains more than 160 million of transistors is able to achieve strong yields with 540MHz 550MHz clock-range, it may be assumed that 90nm design even with larger amount of transistors will offer clock-speeds in-line or higher than current high-end chips.

(לקוח מ xbitlabs)

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