AMD Southern Islands possible for September
Contingent on wafers, but designs are OK
Jun 29, 2011 in Chips, Desktop, Gaming, Graphics, Rumors
What is going on with Southern Islands, the next generation ATI (NYSE:AMD) graphics card? When is it coming out? What is it?
The last one, what is it, is easy. AMD told us all about it at Fusion 11, or at least the shader architecture, so the only open questions are how many of them, and when will we see it? Both are dictated by TSMC’s 28nm process, or are they?
OffiCIal word is that TSMC is coming out with 28nm products in Q3 of this year, that would be some time from next week to the end of September. Given the foundry’s track record on 40nm, we are fairly skeptical about this. Moles say that 28nm non-HKMG is doing just peachy, but the 28nm HKMG process is having the proverbial issues. Lets hope these are the normal bring up/teething issues and things are on time for the sake of the entire industry.
Back to Southern Islands (SI). At Computex, AMD was telling all the vendors Q1, which means TSMC would start ramping in Q4, and have volume in Q1, but in reality, don’t count on things going well. The problem is that other sources are now saying that things are going really really well, and signs are looking like it is September-ish, not February-ish.
If you look at when SI taped out, chips could possibly be on the market in mid-Q3. That date assumes that TSMC is willing, able, and has wafer starts to spare. SemiAccurate is pretty sure that the first is true, the third looks somewhat questionable, and the second is the open question. Considering that there are Apple chips coming off the line now, quite possibly 28nm Apple chips, then that means that TSMC is able, but puts wafer availability in serious doubt.
One other slim but intriguing possibility surrounds SI, is it on 40nm? Northern Islands was originally set for the canceled 32nm process, and was then backported to 40nm, so things like this can and do happen. Could there be some 40nm SIs that come early, then a quick 28nm refresh when our Taiwanese buddies have their wafers ready? Could the line be split between 28 and 40?
Overall, we doubt there will be any 40nm SIs, but technically speaking, it could happen. Southern Islands is much more likely 28nm, and quite possibly coming in very short order. Q3 should be easy if 28nm HKMG works, is on time, and AMD can get the capaCIty it needs. Some other data points show that AMD is looking hard at late August as the earliest possible launch date, but September is more traditional, whatever the process geometry.S|A
58 Responses to “AMD Southern Islands possible for September”
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Aug 11, 2011
[...] AMD Southern Islands possible for September | SemiAccurate AMD Southern Islands possible for September The Southern Island family was to enter mass production in May 2011,[7] with the first samples shown at the AMD Fusion Development Summit (June 13-16, 2011).[8] AMD plans to release the first Southern Islands cards in 2011.[9] The most optimistic forecasts call for Southern Islands to ship as early as September 2011, the primary constraint being the stability of the 28nm process at TSMC.[10] It has been speculated that AMD is to use a version of the 28nm process that is optimized for low power / low clock chips in order to make the Q3 2011 target. The primary competitor of Southern Islands, NVIDIA Kepler (also manufactured at TSMC), is not expected to ship until Q1 2012, largely due to the immaturity of the 28nm process.[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souther…8GPU_family%29 [...]
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Aug 5, 2011
[...] So popularity could be a reason that everywhere is sold out, but that hasn’t stopped many people from speculating that shortages are due to AMD winding down manufacture of the cards. That would make sense, because according to its traditional release schedule the new HD7000 series, based on the completely reworked Graphics Core Next, should be coming out soon. Some sources believe that HD7000s will launch as soon as September. [...]
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Jul 2, 2011
[...] định họ sẽ ra mắt dòng card mới vào cuối năm nay. Ngoài ra, một tin khác từ SemiAccurate nói rõ hơn về mặt thời điểm : tháng 9 năm [...]
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Jun 30, 2011
[...] code named Southern Islands, in the third quarter of this year. No firm release date was set, but SemiAccurate believes the Sunnyvale-based company plans to launch its first GPUs based on this architecture in [...]
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Jun 29, 2011
[...] has some new rumors about SI! HD 7000 in September? (like HD 5000) AMD Southern Islands possible for September | SemiAccurate [...]
The *real* takeaway from this is that whatever process it’s on, the first(?) stepping is production-quality. Quite an accomplishment.
Heise reports quite differently and they name AMD’s CTO for the SI tape-out date. Eric Demers told them in June, that the first 28 nm chips happened in Q2 (Heise points out, that this contradicts an earlier s|A story).
See http://heise.de/-1270711 for the whole post (though you might want to run it through some automatic translation system).
That would only be a contradiction if the new chips are exclusively built on 28nm.
True enough, though I read that “28 nm chips” as interchangeable with “Southern Islands”. At least since there is no hard data supporting the claim, that they might come out with a 40 nm chip first. (Which doesn’t mean it won’t happen, S|A “guessed” the correct answer quite often in the past.)
WTF everyone complains about ATI drivers…I haven’t had ATI driver problems since b4 radeon R520.
Sure there is the occasional bad driver you need to roll back from, but the vast majority of problems could be addressed by using ATI tray tools.
Don’t worry about ATI drivers now I’m sure they will be rock solid (at least 4 windows)
well you know when I use laptop with AMD craps accelerated graphic one time craps laptop my windows start button and task bar disappear, how do I navigate windows environment without
AID of task-bar?
of course linux driver not support by AMD and only time I find use for AMD driver and AMD card is for famous counter-strike source trick of alt-tab and go back into game and can see through wall for advantage
so many problem not just poor performance for AMD craps
Some of us wonder how you manage to navigate anything.
Hahhahaha
Score!!!!!
Control+Shift+escape > File > New task
You forgot Explorer
god is it terrible that I have a similar story to Guy Wong? lol. My work laptop has all kinds of video errors and screen flashing and i don’t even want to say what happens when it goes into screensaver (oh yeah, it crashes). Thanks Radeon HD 3450.
The only Nvidia driver I ever had a problem with was a beta…soooo…can’t really whine too much about it after saying “yes, I understand that this might not work properly”
Apparently you and Wong have stupidity in common.
How about returning you Laptop to IT and tell them you got a borked one (Or you just effed the driver yourself.) Then get a replacement model of which millions rolled of the assembly line working just fine.
You forgot to mention the model number so we could all read the reviews that had no mention of any issues with video at all.
But thanks for taking Guy Wongs side. He needed to know there was another pod out there.\
LOL nice try, but I did actually take it back to IT and they tried to “fix” it several times to no avail. Several people in my office have the same computer and all have had some kind of video errors. It’s the HP 6930p if you must know.
I’ve never had so many problems with a computer or a video card. You can blame the people at HP if you want, or the IT people at my global company. It doesn’t matter, this computer and its graphics card are awful and are enough cause for me to never buy another HP or mobile ATI card.
While I generally do not take Mr Wong’s side, as indicated by the tone of my previous post, in terms of AMD card drivers, I do. You can go ahead and be upset about that. I’ll ask a question: who has two thumbs and doesn’t give a crap?
(this guy)
oh yeah, I like links and proof, so uhhh..here:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Display-and-Video/HP-6930p-Display-Fuzzy-and-blurry/td-p/258275
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGJHs4Ve9E4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwtEzIqIR-w
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/88fd2d12-f553-46f1-be86-814a3c8b5420/
and these don’t even go into the issues that I had when trying to update or re-install drivers, which is why I hate their drivers.
Yup, you’ve got some “issues”, no denying that.
It’s called “user error”.
I don’t believe that you ever owned ANYTHING by AMD. You’re too busy sucking off Intel.
ATI SI on 40nm.. nvidia here I come..;)
CI = CRAPS ISLANDS
You should check out one of my favorite movies… its called Pulp fiction. One of my favorite lines in this movie is
“ENGLISH MOTHER***** DO YOU SPEAK IT?”
Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7jhb8_UPfw&NR=1
English – A language that the Chinese do not speak.
ROFL…. can’t help yourself can you!!! TROLL@@@
CI = Cerebral Instability in your case!!!
Well, if they try SI in 40nm, they will be the mainstream and entry level parts only, for the high end parts would be big enough on 28nm and on 40nm, they would be monstrous, maybe something worse in power consumption than cayman and fermi.
I doubt they are willing to reutilise 40nm on SI, at least on the mobile versions. Perhaps on the lowest end (74×0 or 75×0), possibly even a rebrand on those lower end, as they did with Juniper *shakes fist at AMD*.
As for the mid-range and high-end, it would be catastrophic if they pull an NVIDIA (rebranding for those who don’t know). Just wishful thinking, but I think 28nm will be the process.
AMD needs to hold its ground and beat Nvidia to the 28nm race if its wants to stay in bussiness.
It lost more market share to intel in the cpu arena again!
Maybe next quarter will be better when bulldozer comes out! But they need a back to school 28nm gpu, or atleast a holiday one for some bf3.
And a new mobile chip too
Are you trolling?
AMD does not *need* to hold its ground against NVIDIA, when you look at it, loads of notebook manufacturers prefer AMD over NVIDIA in most cases, or offer both (HP, Lenovo, Alienware, etc).
What AMD does need is to finish Bulldozer and give Ivy Bridge a run for the money.
true
of course, I mean “back to square one.”
No. AMD drivers are fine. ATI drivers were fine. For years! Nvidia have had problems in the intervening years but that is quickly forgotten.
I know what you mean with the state of AMD drivers.
@LD AMD drivers WERE not fine, they were very mediocre. Nvidia may be losing the hardware war with ‘wooden screw’ designs, but their drivers have been more solid than AMDs.
@ guy wong (preemptive strike)
Intel gfx craps take the biscuit for poor quality drivers, quite disgusting considering they ship more gfx chips than anyone.
With the rumored architectural change, does that mean driver stability is back to square?
CI=Completely Irrelevant.
Exactly like what you are reading right now.
Almost makes me want to swear off reading comments.
You sir, just won the game.
Not completely irrelevant. What have we learned today…
Southern Islands may be launched in Q3…or not
Southern Islands may be launched on the 40nm process….or not
I can hear The Inq and the rest of the internet helping themselves to this possible EXCLUSIVE as I type
So, no HKMG for Apple then or what?
Or maybe Charlie Islands?
Cayman islands?
Let’s see… NI – Northern Islands, SI – Southern Islands, CI – Central Islands?
Obviously next generation of discrete GPUs after SI.
TSMC reported that 3% of their revenue q4 would come from 28nm. Is 3% enough to produce AMD gpus?
I also believe that AMD the the not the only firm ordering 28nm wafers.
Well, Canary Islands gets my vote. I need a vacation.
“…gets the capaCIty it needs”. Is TSMC the only SI fab available?
“capaCIty”… deliberate spelling. This is a hint.
GF is finally doing GPU stuff on 32nm soi (llanos).
I wonder what keeps them from fabbing 1xxx sp parts? Transistor density?
I suspect price.
As far as I know SOI wafers are more expensive than bulk and I suspect the process is more expensive too, at least some things are different. I recall that strained silicon proved difficult some years back for example.
And since the 32nm SOI process is relatively new the yields are probably less than desired.
The unknown here is how the 28nm and 32nm bulk process is doing. These are the ones that are plausible alternatives to TSMC. And the possible backup plan.
Didnt AMD mention 32nm yields were upto mark and as stated by charlie some time bcak, I think its the bulk one which would be having problems.
im wondering what the CI seems a blind item…
Charlie-
Was the capital CI in capCIty accidental or were you hinting towards a unknown “Central Islands?”
CI = Charlie’s Invention…or Counterfeit Informer
CI = Charlie’s Invention…or Counterfeit Informer/information.
Jeebus, if this site ran any slower it would be a newsletter delivered by a wandering mule
…or Carribean Islands ?
Charlie’s Insider…
I don’t believe that possible rampup of an “AppleARM ” would affect capacity available to AMD. Apple would likely use 28nmLP node, while AMD/NV are likely to be interested in 28nmHP. Besides, TSMC and its partners were being quite boasty about 28nm LP for over 2 years ( http://www.fabtech.org/news/_a/tsmc_touts_gate_last_hkmg_for_28nm_low_power_applications/ http://chipdesignmag.com/display.php?articleId=4047 ), but “OIP 28nm ecosystem ready” statement has been made only recently.
There will be delays, I don’t expect even mid-range graphic lineup on 28nm during 2011
AMD had pointed out earlier that HP nodes consume a lot of power and so its actually a mix with only crictical transistors on HP and most on normal (i.e. standard Vt) and low power ones.
So what’s with the ‘CI’ being capitalized in various words? Is it some secret code?
tags-hd8000
wtf