Fermi release pushed back till 2010

NVIDIA’s next-gen platform is delayed again

NVIDIA has decided to postpone the release of its next-generation Fermi series of graphics platforms – the latest being the first quarter of next year. The Fermi series include the next-generation flagship GT300 GPUs.

Fermi will overall consist of the GeForce, Quadro and Tesla in the first quarter of fiscal 2011, told Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia – as reported by Digitimes. I am not sure, but it might have to do with the manufacturing glitches Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is facing, who manufactures chips for companies like NVIDIA, and of course AMD. In fact this is not the first time the Taiwanese manufacturer has run into problems with its 40nm processor manufacturing technology, giving more headaches to its clients overseas. This same problem is haunting supplies of AMD's Radeon HD 5000-series GPUs as well.

The problem is that NVIDIA is already struggling to bring out new releases – they only have had one new release in April this year and nothing after that. So they could be at times wishing to push the Fermi release, but the TSMC debacle among other things is holding them back. Also their focus is now shifting to a wider portfolio – the CPU segment, which means they have more things to accomplish at the same time.

It remains to be seen how NVIDIA plans to sail through these uncertain times, with AMD breathing down its neck with the entry-level Radeon HD 5600/5300 GPUs in the first quarter of 2010.