Compared with competitor NVIDIA's 2018 graphics chip manufacturing process, which still stays at 12nm, Chaowei’s biggest highlight this year on the graphics chip is that it will launch 7nm Vega graphics chips this year and aim at artificial intelligence. Application directly built-in machine learning capabilities.
In fact, this year's 7-nm orders for Chaowei returned to TSMC. The news that Su Zifeng responded to analysts' questions during the SuperWealth explanation meeting last week confirmed for the first time that the first 7nm Vega graphics chip was TSMC foundry.
Su Zifeng said that the progress of the production of the 7-nm graphics chips is in line with expectations. Chaoyue's 7-nanometer is commissioned by TSMC and its core OEM. The first 7-nanometer graphics chips are based on TSMC's foundry services. Concerned about TSMC's 7-nm orders being pushed out of Chaowei due to capacity problems.
According to Chaowei’s technical blueprint, this year will begin to adopt 7nm technology. In the graphics chip part, the first 7nm Vega chip will be launched this year, and the new 7nm Navi will be introduced before 2020. Graphics chips, and new graphics chips using ultra-violet (EUV) process 7+ nanometers.
In the processor part, the 7W Micron Zen 2 architecture processor has already been designed. After 2019, it is expected to be launched. By 2020, it will launch the Zen 3 architecture processor with EUV process 7+ nanometer. The server EPYC processor part, developed and code-named Rome 7nm EPYC processor is expected to send samples this year.
Industry sources pointed out that Chaowei’s 7-nm orders were handed over to TSMC and G-Core OEM. However, in terms of proportion, TSMC is expected to win more orders. First, G-Core’s 7-nanometer advance schedule obviously fell to back-office power. The core 7nm production capacity is also not as large as TSMC. Based on this, TSMC's 7nm and 7+nm production will be produced in the next year, and it is expected to win more Chaowei graphics chips, processors and other orders.
TSMC has never commented on customer orders. TSMC’s co-chief executive Wei Zhejia explained the 7-nanometer progress in a recent law talks. TSMC’s 7-nm product has been produced for more than 18 customer products, and there will be more than 50 chips in this year. Complete the tape-out process at the end of the project. The product lines covered include mobile phone chips, server processors, network processors, graphics chips, cryptocurrency computing chips, artificial intelligence, and automotive chips. 7nm has entered volume production. stage.