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[digitimes] GPU market to grow for another 15 years
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Digitimes recently had a chance to talk to Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia to discuss recent issues surrounding the chip design giant.
Q: Can you comment on the recent problems found in Nvidia's notebook chips?
A: The issue involved many potential causes including heat dissipation and chip design. All the causes are currently under investigation. It's important to note that the issue has only surfaced in just a few specific notebook models.
Nvidia never considered trying to shirk responsibility and we immediately started to solve the problem with a conscientious attitude. The most important thing we need to do is to find out where the problem is and prevent the issue from happening again.
Nvidia is a responsible company and we are willing to spend US$200 to solve a problem caused in a GPU worth US$20. Currently, we are negotiating with partners to recall products and hope to give consumers a satisfactory resolution.
Q: Intel and AMD are using their platform strategies to put pressure on Nvidia's chipset business. Is their any truth to the reports you are considering quitting the chipset market?
A: Nvidia has already thrown a large amount of resources into the chipset market and we have managed to gain a large share of the AMD chipset platform, we have also made some progress into Intel's platform. We will continue to operate this product line.
In addition to chipsets, we will add more innovative applications to out GPU products and will promote to consumers that Nvidia's GPUs are the best choice.
Q: Does Nvidia have any plans to own a fab?
A: If you ask Intel, they will tell you that owning your own fab is the best choice since it helps you lower manufacturing costs and control process advancement. However, if you ask AMD, they will likely tell you that they don't want to own any fabs. Nvidia has never owned a fab, and yet we are going strong.
Consumers don't care about whether a company owns its own fabs or outsources production to other makers. Consumers only want to buy products bearing the Nvidia name. We have good relationships with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and this cooperation won't see any changes in the next few years.
Q: Is Nvidia planning to adopt the 40nm process recently announced by TSMC?
A: Nvidia have always been very careful about our process transition plans. Maturity and yield rates are our priority considerations. We will adopt the latest process nodes at the most appropriate time.
Q: Some market watchers believe that the GPU market has already matured and will see hardly any major growth in the future, and may even see a drop. What are your thoughts on this?
A: The future development of GPUs will see them expand into all other industries. That was the purpose of Nvision this year, not just explaining our technologies, but also to show consumers the many different applications to which GPUs can be Apple, such as video production.
The company is also partnering with software companies such as Adobe, Microsoft and Apple to help bring professional image production to the mainstream.
Q: Both Intel and AMD are planning to integrate northbridge functions and GPU capabilities into their upcoming CPUs. How will this strategy impact Nvidia? How is Nvidia going to handle the era when CPU and GPUs are combined, do you expect to see an impact on your current market share?
A: I don't really care if they put GPUs into chipsets or CPUs. Nvidia's GPUs still own advantages in design and performance, so even after Intel and AMD launch combined CPU and GPU products, vendors will still choose Nvidia's IGP chipsets and GPUs in order to fulfill market demand. Nvidia will devote our full strength to make sure our GPUs remain in high demand in the market.
Currently, the major tasks that IGP chipsets perform are game playing and image decoding, which are tasks that can be easily achieved by all three of the top graphics players. But we have a competitive edge with our Cuda technology which can help PCs to do parallel calculations 10-100% faster than CPUs, and our PhysX technology is available to make games look even more realistic. That is why our products remain in high demand, an we our confident we can develop more technologies that our competitors can't match.
I understand that Nvidia doesn't have the advantage of having our own platform, but this also means that the technological capabilities and performance of our GPUs must surpass that of our competitors. This is why we have invested heavily in the development of Cuda and PhysX.
As for whether CPUs with integrated GPUs will affect Nvidia's market share, there is no direct relationship between the two. It's about whether Nvidia owns strong graphics technologies. As long as our GPUs lead in technology and performance, our competitors' integrated GPU solutions will just be a waste of resources and people will still continue to adopt Nvidia IGP chipsets and GPUs.
I really don't worry about the IGP chipset market, since Intel's own IGP chipsets account for 99% of its platform and we have a less than 1% share of the market. We are performing stronger on the AMD platform side, but since the scale of this market is much smaller than the Intel one, once Intel and AMD start to integrate GPUs into their CPUs there won't be any major affect on our market. What our competitors do is not the problem; the performance we deliver with our GPUs is the key factor.
Q: Nvidia's major product developments are focusing on desktop PCs and workstations. But the notebook market continues to grow. Additionally, integrated CPU and GPU designs will have an advantage in this market. Does Nvidia expect to lose its position in the notebook market?
A: Our IGP chipset share of the overall notebook market is not very high since we have only been invested in the Intel platform for less than two years, therefore our major focus is still AMD's notebook platform.
We are developing our competitive edge over built-in discrete graphics cards for notebooks and expect to increase our share of this market to over 50%. In order to achieve this goal we have to continue to improve the performance of our GPUs.
Q: Will Intel's Larrabee impact Nvidia?
A: Intel has been talking about GPU development since they are worried that the importance of GPUs will surpass that of the CPU. However, since Intel has not brought any product to market, I can't really comment about it.
However, I would like to comment on Intel's push to using x86 architecture for GPUs. High-end graphics technology is not something you can achieve by just stepping through the door. Intel's hope of changing the whole GPU industry is not going to be something easily achieved.
Q: So, with CPU makers starting to integrate different functionalities such as memory controllers and GPUs on-die or in-package, will we start to see GPUs also begin to integrate different kinds of technologies or cores?
A: GPUs were born for graphics calculations, they are not made to compete with CPUs and the two should live side by side. Our Cuda technology isn't meant to enable a GPU to completely replace a CPU. I believe GPUs don't need to integrate different kinds of cores.
However, as to what different technologies can be integrated into future GPUs, that is top secret right now, consumers will find out more when the time comes.
Q: AMD's current strategy for GPUs is to focus resources on mainstream products in order to save costs and time, and then target the high-end market with dual-GPU designs, what is your opinion on this?
A: Basically, I don't agree with the strategy since single-GPU designs are definitely more efficient than dual-GPU ones. If a single GPU can perform 100%, a dual-GPU card can only achieve 130-180% performance, while costs are much higher.
As for whether dual-GPU designs help save development time, I think this is a question of the research team's ability. Since Nvidia's team is much stronger than our competitor's, I believe we are able to achieve time-to-market and yet still maintain design excellence.
Q: There are rumors Nvidia is heading into x86 CPU design, your comments?
A: Currently, we have no plans for that. We are very busy already and have no time to cross over to our competitors' field. The most important thing to remember is that Intel is the leader in the CPU market and so it's better that Nvidia focuses on what we do best. To cut in to the x86 CPU market would just be a waste of time and resources.
Q: In addition to GPUs, chipsets and mobile device processors, does Nvidia have plans for new product lines?
A: I am a person that likes to complete one task before heading into another; Nvidia's GPU journey is not yet complete. I believe the GPU market can continue to grow for another 15 years. Currently, I only want to focus on our current product lines.
I expect the mobile device market to have large business potential in the future. Currently, consumers have at least one handset and with internet applications continuing to expand, multifunction mobile devices which integrate telecommunication capabilities will become standard equipment in the future.
Q: What do you think is the advantage of Nvidia's ARM-based Tegra CPU against Intel's x86-based Atom for MID (Mobile Internet Device) CPUs?
A: As I see it, the advantage of these mobile devices is that they offer PC functionality and yet are easy to carry. The reason Nvidia adopted the ARM architecture is that it fulfills the basic requirements of small size and low power. x86 architecture designs require devices to be much larger and heavier. For this reason x86 will never become the mainstream in this market.
Q: Do Nvidia's revenues from mobile device CPUs have a chance of superseding those of GPUs to become your major product line?
A: I personally like GPUs better, not only because they bring new visual pleasure to PC products, they are also the key to Nvidia's current success. I don't want to see GPUs become a sub-product line. However, this is just my personal opinion, not the official stance of the company.
As CEO, of course, I hope mobile device CPU revenues can pick up quickly and reach their maximum potential. All Nvidia's product lines are the result of each team's hard work and I cannot comment on which will be our major product line in the future since both still have potential
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[digitimes] GPU market to grow for another 15 years
09-23-08
