A Board Too Complex: How a 78-Layer PCB Forced Nvidia to Rethink Its AI Lineup
Published on 07/06/2026 at 17:25 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Nvidia's tightly wound product cadence has hit a snag no amount of software tweaks can fix. The culprit: a 78-layer printed circuit board manufactured to the exacting M9 standard. The board sits at the heart of the Kyber NVL144 rack platform, and production yields are far too low for mass manufacturing. As a result, the Kyber architecture — originally slated for 2027 — has been pushed back by more than a year, landing a commercial launch in 2028.
The delay forces sweeping changes across Nvidia's high-performance rack roadmap. The planned NVL72x2 bridge design has been scrapped entirely after major cloud customers rejected the concept. Meanwhile, the NVL576 system faces its own headwinds, with co-packaged optics technology dragging on the timeline. Climbing down from the rack level, the chip giant has also shelved the four-die variant of the upcoming Rubin Ultra processor, leaving only the two-die version in play. Analysts at SemiAnalysis characterise this as a structural bottleneck: Nvidia now lacks a proven near-term path to push its most powerful silicon to higher performance tiers. The existing Rubin family is unaffected — those systems remain on track for delivery to eight hyperscale partners including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud in the second half of 2026.
Asian suppliers bear the brunt
The production snag reverberated hard across Nvidia's supply chain. In Asian trading on Monday, Kingboard Laminates plunged 18%, Samsung Electro-Mechanics shed 11%, while Ibiden and Elite Material each dropped around 10%. All four are critical suppliers of substrates and components for Nvidia's server boards. Nvidia's own stock, by contrast, barely flinched. It closed at €172.20, up 0.13% on the day and 0.83% higher over the past week. On a monthly basis, however, the shares are 3.3% lower, and they remain nearly 15% below a May record of €202.50. The secondary market sees the stock still holding above its widely watched 200-day moving average, providing a modest buffer against further downside.
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A strategic window for rivals
The one-year postponement opens a door for competitors. Analysts point to AMD's MI500X and Google's TPUv8i — codenamed Broadfly — as candidates that could capture ground while Nvidia works through its manufacturing woes. The delay is not a crisis for near-term revenue, however. SemiAnalysis estimates that Nvidia's data-centre hardware sales could beat consensus estimates by as much as 20% in the second half of fiscal 2027, fuelled by strong demand for the already available Rubin and Oberon systems. For now, the Kyber setback only affects the chapter after next on Nvidia's road map. The company has remained silent on the reports, but investors will press for clarity on delivery timelines when the next quarterly results are published.
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