According to a new report from a Japanese news source, Nvidia will use Samsung’s 7nm EUV process to manufacture its 2020 GPUs. We also learned late last month that IBM plans to manufacture its 7nm Power processors using the same Samsung process.
Samsung announced in October 2017 that it had begun risk production of 7nm EUV chips. The risk production appears to be ahead of schedule, as it was scheduled to begin in early 2019.
Nvidia uses TSMC’s 12nm process for its most recent GPU cards. In a previous report by DigiTimes, Nvidia was rumored to use TSMC’s non-EUV 7nm process for its cards in 2019. However, if Nvidia plans to use Samsung’s 7nm EUV process in 2020, this may no longer be the case.
It is possible that Nvidia could use TSMC’s 7nm process in 2019 for some of its products and Samsung’s 7nm EUV process in 2020 for others, but this may not make much practical sense, as it would complicate the design of its product lineup.
Nvidia may also believe that its position will not be significantly threatened if it adheres to 12nm in 2019. It is rumored that AMD’s Navi GPU architecture will debut on TSMC’s 7nm process in 2019, but only mid-range GPU cards are scheduled for release in 2019. If AMD does not have a 7nm high-end GPU planned for this year, then Nvidia has little competitive reason to switch from the 12nm process at the high end.
Samsung was the first company to wager on the EUV lithography process, and it appears that it will reap the most benefits early on, as competitors such as TSMC and Intel delay their transition to EUV.
