Relations between NVIDIA and its principal foundry partner, TSMC, have been unpredictable in recent times, with reports of NVIDIA expressing displeasure with it over 28 nm manufacturing capacity, which is denting its competitiveness; and later crediting collaboration with it, for the energy-efficiency of its latest Kepler family of GPUs. With NVIDIA threatening to find other foundry partners for bulk manufacturing, and reports of Samsung already preparing qualification samples for it, TSMC is responding by issuing NVIDIA a priority over other clients (such as Qualcomm, AMD) for manufacturing of 28 nm chips.

While being unsatisfied with TSMC's output, and its new policy of charging for wafers rather than working chips yielded, NVIDIA refuted rumors of it seeking other foundry partners such as Samsung and Global Foundries. When put on high-priority, TSMC will facilitate speedy launch of new NVIDIA GeForce SKUs towards the end of Q2, 2012. Supply prioritization isn't new, TSMC has, in the past, prioritized Qualcomm when it threatened to shift allocations to other foundries. It remains to be seen how AMD responds to the situation, as such a prioritization would come at the expense of its volumes, and could threaten its competitiveness.