NVIDIA’s upcoming Blackwell AI GPU family is “encountering major issues” according to a new detailed breakdown by SemiAnalysis, which will impact production targets through into the first half of 2025.
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The main problems are from the NVIDIA Blackwell GPU architecture and the chip packaging used: TSMC’s new CoWoS-L. SemiAnalysis explains that one of the rumors swirling is that one of the top few global routing metal layers and bump out of the Blackwell die needs a redesign, while another is that the bridge dies inside the CoWoS-L packaging need a redesign.
SemiAnalysis explains that there has a been a warpage in the CoWoS-L packaging that was caused by heat, with TSMC’s new CoWoS-L advanced packaging being more complex than the now more mainstream CoWoS-S packaging.
NVIDIA’s new Blackwell AI GPUs will be the first mass-market chips to use TSMC’s latest CoWoS-L advanced packaging, with “NVIDIA and TSMC aimed for a very aggressive ramp scheduled to over a million chips a quarter. Consequently, there have been a variety of issues”.
According to SemiAnalysis, NVIDIA is reportedly dealing with the issues by extending the Hopper AI GPU series and introducing a new Blackwell family GPU: the B200A. The new B200A AI GPU would be packaged using TSMC’s CoWoS-S and rival packaging technologies from other suppliers, including Amkor, ASE, and Samsung.
According to SemiAnalysis, the new B200 AI GPU will fulfill demand for lower-end and mid-range AI systems, replacing the B100 and B200 chips in the HGX 8-GPU supercomputing platform form factors.
TSMC has been aggressively expanding its CoWoS-L advanced packaging capacity to boost volumes, with a new packaging plant called “AP6” now under construction, and by converting current CoWoS-S capacity at AP3 to CoWoS-L capacity, added SemiAnalysis.
3NVIDIA’s new Blackwell B200 AI GPU was meant to be launching in Q4 2024, but SemiAnalysis has a new roadmap that has B200 shipping in “low volume” towards the end of the year (late November, December) while B200A will arrive sometime in Q2 2025 or Q3 2025.