ATI to switch to 90 nanometres in 2005

ATI'S CEO HAD a hard task on the second day after he got promoted as he had to meet the INQ and he sure did a good job. He told us some plans for 2005 as it is doing quite well shifting to a 110 nanometre chip making process.

Its RV370, X300 low end card is its first 110nm baby and ATI said it is doing just fine with it. We saw that the core was actually tiny compared to the 130 nanometre based RV380, X600 series and that will certainly save some costs.

We also learned that the 110 nanometre process is actually not Low K as this is not yet available.

TSMC is building ATI chips and the foundry is ready to overwhelm the market when Intel introduces its platforms later this month.

The X300 should sit at around $100 in the market, so is very affordable.

ATI is already considering the next generation process at 90 nanometres in calendar 2005 which means that it is aggressively pushing its roadmaps ever onwards and upwards.

ATI cannot yet be any more specific as you never know the practical problems that may arrive when you move to new chip processes. But a 90 nanometre graphics card in 2005 sounds attractive, if all goes well. µ