Last week, nVidia became the first GPU vendor to have an 80nm part on the market. With their new GeForce Go 7700, the 80nm process card will become an ideal choice for notebook manufacturers looking to improve battery life and integration further. They beat ATI to market by a significant margin, who still doesn't have a date set for 80nm rollouts. But perhaps ATI will beat nVidia to 65nm, a feat even more impressive than 80?
A June 16 article cited Edward Chou, marketing director of ATI Technologies Asia-Pacific division, as noting that ATI's scheduled timeframe for a complete migration to 80nm production would come without delay. By 2007, ATI expects to start implementing a 65nm production node, in an attempt to bring better cost efficiency, Chou stated in the report.
nVidia hasn't made any claims about their 65nm roadmap. ATI is falling behind, so this may be their chance to catch up. There's probably a lot of turmoil involved in the merger, which may be impacting their R&D at this time. But with a claim of 65nm by 2007, they must have something up their sleeve.