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Next-gen Nvidia graphics cards are going to make TSMC a lot of money in Q4

Nvidia Volta V100 GPU

Semiconductor foundry giant TSMC is expected to continue to do exceptionally well in the fourth quarter. While a deal with Apple for iPhone processor silicon is expected to be quite lucrative for the foundry, it’s the expectation – from industry sources – of increasing revenue from Nvidia’s next-gen graphics cards by Q4 that is promising news for us gamers.

TSMC is responsible for a portion of both Nvidia and AMD’s current and upcoming GPU silicon. AMD’s upcoming 7nm Vega graphics card is touted as using the company’s latest 7nm process node, while Nvidia’s current Pascal generation GPUs utilise its 16nm process node.

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The current lineup of Nvidia Volta architecture GPUs, such as the Tesla V100 and Titan V, all utilise TSMC’s 12nm tech. It’s expected that the next-generation GeForce range spawned from this overarching architecture – who’s name is still unclear – will also be built upon the same lithography whenever they make it out the door – which industry insiders believe will be in time to make an impact on Q4 earnings.

The latest DigiTimes report from industry sources paints a pretty picture for TSMC over the second half of 2018. Following strong mobile device silicon demand from the likes of Apple and Huawei, shipments for Nvidia’s next-generation graphics cards are expected to contribute to a strong Q4 profit for the company.

Nvidia Titan V technical

That lines up near-perfectly with the current theory that Nvidia are planning something big in August with a view to launch sometime shortly after in September. That’s right at the end of Q3 and sets up a stellar Q4 for TSMC, with a much needed (for the manufacturers) resurgence in graphics card demand after cryptocurrency GPU mining demand dropped off the face of the planet.

Nvidia’s GTX 1180 graphics card specs are still largely unknown at this time. Even the name of the architecture – potentially Volta, Turing, and, at one point, even Ampere – is still up in the air despite strong rumours Nvidia will finally let the cat out of the bag next month.

It seems likely that Nvidia will include the latest GDDR6 memory standard in the high-end card design and maybe even Tensor Cores for more straight compute power, but it’s still all largely conjecture at this point in time. There may even be a USB Type-C port on the rear of the graphics card to power virtual reality headsets…. For now, let’s just hope August isn’t another let down.