ATI is shaping up for 80 nanometre chips

ATI SAYS it is working hard on ramping up the production of its first 80 nanometre chips.

September is the time for a lot of new refreshes, we hear. The first to come is the RV505 which is set to replace the existing RV515 and to coexist with the current Radeon X300 cards. The new chip is built on an 80-nanometre process.

ATI plans to follow up with RV560 and RV570 - to add a bit more poke. These chips have to fight Nvidian offerings in the mainstream market. The RV570 will even work in pairs and you can fit two of them on a PCB. This card will still be powerless to fight 7950 GX2 but that is a different league.

the new old R580+ still remains 90 nanometre but the new R600 will get the optical cosmetic shrink to 80 nanometre.

If the yields are good, 80 nanometre chips are cheaper as you can put more of them on a single wafer. Nvidia is still quiet on its 80 nanometre plans. µ