Taiwanese media-sources revealed that NVIDIA’s next-generation NV35 graphics processor will be formally announced next-month with actual graphics cards appearing shortly afterwards.

We told you in the past that NVIDIA’s NV35 graphics chip had been taped out by CeBIT Hannover 2003 and was even demonstrated behind the closed doors during the show. Even if it was not the final revision of the chip, I remember NVIDIA claiming that it usually takes the Santa Clara-based fabless semiconductor company about 100 days to start the mass production after the first tape-out (100 Days Tape Out To Production, as NVIDIA calls it), so, if we presuppose that the NV35 was taped out in late February or early March, we can expect the company to start the production in mid to late May. As a result, actual graphics cards can reach the shelves of the stores in early June or even late May in the best case.

Remember that NVIDIA and IBM said that the latter will produce GeForce FX-series of graphics processors starting this Summer. Hence, if IBM actually makes the NV35 GPU, we will see appropriate graphics cards sometime later than in early June. Though, these are only assumptions.

NV35 GPU is going to be a considerably improved GeForce FX 5800 (NV30) graphics processor with several modifications made in order to boost performance, yield and other obstacles that presently do not let NVIDIA to start selling its GeForce FX 5800 solutions in mass quantities. The graphics cards based on the new graphics processor will utilise DDR SDRAM memory and feature 256-bit bus, providing more bandwidth than the current DDR-II memory with 128-bit bus on the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra.