One of Santa's biggest problems for 2009 looks to be the new generation of graphics cards made with 40nm technology. Semiconductor manufacturer TSMC has once again run into problems with its 40nm process and this cause further problems for NVIDIA and its Fermi architecture, but also already launched circuits from rival AMD. The launch date of the Fermi architecture is unknown so far but most agree that we will not be seeing NVIDIA's DirectX 11 architecture before Q1 2010.
Fermi is a monster circuits that is hard to make no matter the technology, but with a faulty node at TSMC it becomes, if possible, even harder for NVIDIA to meet the demand from customers.
Fermi - a circuit with 3 billion transistors needs a mature manufacturing technology
The sliver lining for NVIDIA is that this also affects AMD and cripples availability. Especially its Radeon HD 5800 series that use the pretty powerful Cypress GPU, with more than 2 billion transistors, has been hard to find in stores. It's impossible for TSMC to keep up with the demand and this is the only reason cards are scarce according to the graphics card makers.
AMD's Cypress GPU in hiding
Alas most will have to wait until January since TSMC has said that it is hoping to solve this before the end of the year, which will cripple deliveries up until Christmas.
AMD's Juniper GPU, which is more or less Cypress cut in half, isn't suffering as badly as Cypress and since the Radeon HD 5700 series isn't as hot as the bigger brother it's easier to find in stock.
Those who are sitting at home hoping for a graphics card under the tree may want to lower expectations.
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