Written by Metal Messiah

In a new report posted by ChinaTimes it has been outlined that Nvidia’s upcoming “Ampere” GPUs will indeed use TSMC’s 7nm process node technology, while the next-generation “Hopper GPU“ family would likely be based on Samsung’s 5nm EUV process node.

There have been some rumors circulating before as well as to whether Nvidia will tap TSMC’s 7nm process node to manufacture the AMPERE lineup of cards.

The report suggests that Nvidia’s Ampere GPUs for the HPC segment, data center, and most probably even for Gaming, will be based on TSMC’s advanced  7nm manufacturing process.

However, there’s also a chance that “Ampere” is just a logical successor to VOLTA and will only be used and implemented on the company’s professional-grade enterprise GPUs, and not the gaming consumer cards which are expected later this year. But this has not being fully confirmed yet.

As soon as this news came out, Samsung also released a statement in its Q1 results report confirming that it will begin production of its 5nm EUV process (5LPE) most probably by Q2 2020.

According to this new “ChinaTimes” report, Nvidia will be the biggest customer of TSMC’s 7nm process node. The article further alleges that the new Ampere lineup from Team Green will be announced in may itself, with a sooner than expected launch date.

Meanwhile, AMD is going to leverage a more mature form of the “7nm process” for its upcoming Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs, as well as the Navi 2x GPUs.

ChinaTimes also alluded to another upcoming GPU from Nvidia. Ampere’s successor, HOPPER, was also mentioned. Hopper is rumored to use multi-chip modules (MCM).  Based on previous rumors it seems likely that the next-generation Hopper GPUs from nvidia are going to use Samsung’s 5nm EUV process node.

Samsung has already received orders for processors, graphics cards, and several other products based on its “5nm” process node. According to the report, most of these products are going to be used in consumer and end user applications.

Nvidia is slowly preparing to launch the RTX 3000 series in third quarter, as AIBs also quickly try to clear the current inventory of cards for Ampere.  For now though, it seems that TSMC has won another round.

However, it should be noted that TSMC also has its own EUV process. In october, TSMC began mass production of its new N7+ line. One takeaway from all this is that “EUV lithography” is surely going to play a major role in the upcoming node fabrication prcoess.