The Inquirer mole is digging again. It was already hinted in [H]'s combined review of GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB that ATI is planning to release another VPU based on the R3xx core. ATI will distribute its next generation GPUs, namely R360 for the high-end market and RV360 for the mainstream market, to its partners beginning in July, it has emerged. Both R360 and RV360 will be manufactured by TSMC, using 0.15µ and 0.13µ processes, respectively. There will be a significant volume increase in ATI's Q3 orders at TSMC compared to the second quarter, according to a report in the Chinese language version of the Economic News.
Faced with Nvidia's NV35 high-end GPU announced earlier this week, ATI plans to head into battle with Radeon 9800 first. It will deliver the more powerful R360 later to combat NV35. R360 will be manufactured by TSMC using 0.15µ process, while RV360, the successor of RV350 for the mainstream market, will use 0.13µ process. TSMC has declined to comment on ATI's orders, the Chinese press reports here, but according to an ATI executive, the production of RV350 has been going quite smoothly, and its yield has met the company's expectation.