Nvidia’s graphics architecture Volta can be manufactured at 12 nanometers from TSMC

After years of 28 nanometers for high-performance circuits such as graphics processors, Nvidia in 2016 took the step over to 16 nanometers from TSMC, while AMD instead chose 14 nanometers from Globalfoundries and its partner Samsung. The next technology life is 10 nanometers and is mainly aimed at mobile system circuits, so both parties are expected to stay on each technology for a while longer.

The next natural step for high-performance circuits will be 7 nanometers, which is not expected to be ready for production until the first half of 2018 at the earliest.

Before the turn of the year, Samsung launched its fourth generation of 14 nanometers, which provides better performance (clock frequencies) at the same power consumption as before. The same applies to TSMC’s fourth iteration of 16 nanometers, 12 nanometers, which, however, also offers better transistor density and thus justifies the name change.

Digitmes now reports that one of TSMC’s customers of 12 nanometers will be Nvidia, which will use the technology for its next architecture, Volta. This replaces the Pascal and Geforce GTX 1000 series. What the news in Volta will be is not yet known, but better energy efficiency and performance are given. It is also with Volta that Nvidia is expected to take the HBM memory technology to consumers.

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The launch of Nvidia Volta will take place sometime in 2018.