We all know that 28nm from AMD has been demonstrated and that AMD is doing quite well with the chip, but it looks like it’s the fab that is holding things down. Reportedly, both TSMC and Globalfoundries have serious issues with mass production of 28nm chips and the yields are simply not there.

Our sources are saying that to their knowledge, AMD's Southern islands 28nm are going to ship next year, most likely in early Q1 2012 and this goes for both desktop and mobile chips. Professional graphics based on 28nm has a chance to ship in this year, but this is something that will be decided at a later date.

Nvidia has already said that they will ship in 2012, meaning that the new architecture codenamed Kepler should start shipping next year. The company also went on record and said that Kepler 28nm production starts this year, but it refered to actual chip production, with no comment on the actual market availability or retail / OEM products.

AMD might actually launch at some point in Q4 2011 but with current yields, we would expect that the product would be sold out and literary nonexistent all the way to Q1 2012 when they expect to ramp up production. AMD did this last year with Northern Islands, Radeon HD 6000 series, and it was almost impossible to get the card throughout Q4 2010.  The big issue is, once you launch the new generation, sales of the previous one take a serious hit.