CES 2010 is just a hair over 2 months away and is the prime time for nVIDIA to show off Fermi and its processing capabilities alone or in parallel.  Fermi A2 silicon has taped out according to Charlie at SemiAccurate, raising hopes that at least some silicon, perhaps even working, will be shown off sometime between now and the end of CES.  We know that TSMC has had yield difficulties with the 40nm process that have not abated, which may supply cause problems down the line, assuming we see working silicon in the near future.  Do not lose all hope, but if you are depending on Fermi appearing soon a little fear is reasonable.

“IT LOOKS LIKE Fermi A2 silicon has finally taped out, so the timetables are a little firmer once again. There is no chance of a real launch in 2009, making the chip a shining example of Nvidia’s engineering mire. (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Lets recap a bit. We said that Fermi, then called GT300, taped out on about Work Week 28 (WW28), and it did. We said that silicon was due back in 6-8 weeks, and cards could possibly be shown publicly on Oct 1. We admit that we overestimated Nvidia’s ability to engineer its way out of a wet paper bag with a map, flashlight and a bunch of wood screws here.

It hasn’t shown a card yet at all, yields are miserable, but it did in fact get silicon back on either WW35 or 36, which is right where we said it would be, almost to the day. The fact that yields were a joke, coupled with ‘puppy’ inflicted own goals, made things downright laughable for Dear Leader and company. Nvidia didn’t have enough working dies to do the testing it needed, much less show some off for PR, so it faked that.”

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