神威蓝光 + TSMC 40nm + Cash Grant to GlobalFoundries

choi

(1) John Markoff, China Has Homemade Supercomputer Gain, With Own Chips. New York Times, Oct 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/2 ... sq=china&st=cse

Quote:

"Dr [Jack] Dongarra[, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee and a leader of the Top500 project, a list of the world’s fastest computers] said it was intriguing that the power requirements of the new Chinese supercomputer were relatively modest — about one megawatt, according to reports from the technical conference. The Tianhe supercomputer consumes about four megawatts and the Jaguar about seven.

"Photos of the new Sunway supercomputer reveal an elaborate water-cooling system that may be a significant advance in the design of the very fastest machines.

Note:
(a) Sunway BlueLight MPP  神威蓝光
(b)
peta- : 10 raised to the power of 15
exa- : 10 raised to the power of 18
(c) ShenWei SW1600 microprocessor  申威1600 处理器
See 申威
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%B3%E5%A8%81
(d) SPARC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC
(SPARC (from Scalable Processor ARChitecture) is a RISC instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987)


(2) Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai, Graphics Card Makers Conservative About Nvidia and AMD 28nm chips. DigiTimes, Oct
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20111026PD214.html

My comment: It appears that "TSMC's weak 40nm process yield rate" is genuine, though TSMC was mum about it.

(3) Larry Rulison, GlobalFoundries Cash Grant Largest Ever Awarded in US. Albany Times Union, Oct 9, 2011
http://www.timesunion.com/busine ... awarded-2209888.php
(To lure GlobalFoundries' $4.6 billion Fab 8, New York state offered a whopping $1.4 billion in incentives. which included a $665 million cash grant, unprecedented in US history. In comparison, Washington state's $2 billion package offered to aerospace giant Boeing Co in 2003 as the largest US incentive package ever [wose cash grant is not disclosed in this report])

My comment: No wonder a couple of days ago, TSMC CEO Morris Chang wanted Taiwan to "cherish" its industries. Still I am firm that a government should subsidize.
-------------------------------------
Graphics card makers conservative about Nvidia and AMD 28nm chips
Monica Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 26 October 2011]

While Nvidia and AMD are poised to use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) 28nm technology to produce the GPUs Kepler and Southern Islands respectively, most Taiwan-based graphics card makers hold a conservative attitude about the new GPUs with some makers cautiously watching the market status before making any further decisions, according to industry sources.

Compared to the makers' eagerness for the previous-generation GPUs, graphics card makers are rather conservative about the upcoming 28nm chips due to concerns such as TSMC's weak 40nm process yield rate issues may re-occur in its 28nm process and weakening demand for graphics cards and lower-than-expected gross margins.

Since high-end discrete graphics cards are currently seeing weakening sales, while demand for mid-range and entry-level graphics cards is gradually being replaced by AMD and Intel's GPU-integrated processors, demand for discrete graphics cards is only expected to become weaker, the sources noted.

Although previous rumors have indicated that TSMC's poor 28nm process yield rate could affect Nvidia's launch of its 28nm GPUs on schedule at the end of 2011, as TSMC already announced its 28nm process has entered mass production, Nvidia's new Kepler GPUs are expected to be announced in December.

Meanwhile, AMD's 28nm Southern Islands-based Radeon HD 7000 GPUs have already entered production with official launch expected in first-quarter 2012.
===============================