Nvidia NV30 not yet taped out

WE ALL THOUGHT -- and we think ATI thought this too - that Nvidia's next GPU, the NV30, had taped out in early June.

But the conference call, which revealed that Nvidia's Q2 wasn't as robust as everyone had expected, also covered NV30, with one analyst repeatedly asking whether the CEO whether it had taped out.

Huang said that the NV30 "should be available for the holiday season" but was asked again whether it had taped out.

To that he replied that Nvidia had done a good job historically taping out its products.

To which the analyst responded saying "So it has not been taped out yet".

Finally, Huang conceded that no, NV30 hadn't yet taped out, although the firm was in the process of "wrapping it up".

This would indicate to us that ATI might have a longer window of opportunity to sell against Nvidia than we thought when we discovered its R300 details at last June's Computex. µ