Items tagged with 5nm
Every indication up to this point is that AMD's upcoming Zen 3 CPUs will be based on an enhanced 7-nanometer manufacturing process, with Zen 4 seeing an eventual shift to 5nm. But what if that was not the case? What if AMD decided to shake things up and jump straight to 5nm with its next round of CPUs instead, in pursuit of continued process leadership over rival Intel? That would certainly be something. On the desktop, Intel is still coaxing as much performance as it can out of its 14nm node, with 10nm silicon only showing up on mobile so far (like Ice Lake). This includes its latest round of processors, Comet Lake-S, which represents yet another iteration of 14nm. While there is more to the...
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The rumblings turned out to be true—Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has confirmed plans to build and operate another chip manufacturing plant in the United States, and specifically in Arizona. TSMC said it the made the decision with the understanding that it would receive support from the US government and Arizona officials. "TSMC welcomes continued strong partnership with the U.S. administration and the State of Arizona on this project. This project will require significant capital and technology investments from TSMC. The strong investment climate in the United States, and its talented workforce make this and future investments in the U.S. attractive to TSMC," the chip...
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Nearly half a year has passed since Google launched its Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL phones, and the Pixel 4a and Pixel 4a XL are right around the corner. Is it too early to start talking about the Pixel 5? Of course not! And as it pertains to Google's next flagship smartphone series, there is chatter that the next round of flagships might adopt Samsung's Exynos SoC hardware. It is a bit of an interesting situation all around—Samsung itself uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors in its Galaxy handsets sold in the US and various other regions, but also sources its own Exynos chips for models in some places. This is the case with the Galaxy S20 as well, which sports either a Snapdragon 865 or Exynos...
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TSMC has been critical to AMD’s resurgence as a dominant force in the processor market, and the company has also been beneficial in ensuring that Apple has a steady flow of A12 and A13 SoCs on hand for its hot-selling iPhone and iPad product lines. As TSMC is looking to grapple with the demands of these high-profile customers while shifting to smaller process nodes, it needs to invest in its fabs. Luckily for the company, its board this week approved approximately $6.7 billion to expand it facilities used to produce chips. The capital appropriations have been narrowed down to these five areas according to TSMC: Fab construction and installation of fab facility systems Installation...
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Enthusiasts and enterprise customers have only been swimming in 7nm Zen 2 goodness for the past few months or so, but AMD is not sitting still when it comes to the rapid-fire development and release of its processors. Zen 3-based CPUs based on TSMC's 7nm+ process node are on track for launch likely during the second half of 2020. And now a new report today coming from China Times (hat tip to WCCFTech), says that TSMC is already progressing nicely with its next-generation 5nm process node. The company has three companies lined up with first production run: Apple, HiSilicon, and AMD. According to the report, TSMC is already seeing promising yields from 5nm (currently sitting...
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When it comes to 7nm chip production, TSMC has been on the bleeding edge of technological development. TSMC is the leading producer of 7nm designs for a number of leading tech giants like Qualcomm, AMD, and Apple (among others). While the company is well on its way to sampling 5nm parts to customers, it is also laying the groundwork for 3nm production in the near future. TSMC 3nm And 5nm Process Nodes The Electronic Times is reporting that TSMC has just begun construction on its next-generation 3nm fab. The manufacturing line is allegedly being constructed on 74 acres of land within the Southern Taiwan Science and Technology Park. TSMC reportedly has $19.5 billion at...
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If you own an Android phone, there is a high chance it is rocking a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor of some kind inside. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Qualcomm will unleash a new flagship SoC, the Snapdragon 865, yet there is already talk of what comes after. That would be the Snapdragon 875, assuming Qualcomm sticks to its conventional naming scheme. Based on a recent leak, the Snapdragon 865 is shaping up to be a worthy successor to the current-generation Snapdragon 855 (and 855 Plus). Codename "Kona," a recent entry in Geekbench's database shows the Snapdragon 865 benefiting from a healthy boost in single-threaded performance, and posting gains in multi-threaded workloads. According...
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TSMC generated $7.75 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2019, which is down 1.4 percent year-over-year but up 9.2 percent from the previous quarter. In a subsequent conference call with investors, TSMC talked about powering through softening economic conditions, and what the future holds in regards to 5-nanometer (nm) and 3nm process nodes. Referred to by TSMC as N5 and N3, the company is currently busy churning out N7 (or 7nm) silicon, as featured in AMD's third-generation Ryzen processors. AMD has also moved to a 7nm node for its newest generation Navi GPUs and is doing rather well for itself, with a gigantic assist from TSMC on the manufacturing front. Looking ahead, TSMC anticipates...
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In just a few weeks, AMD is expected to roll out its new Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs based on its Zen 2 architecture. These new parts are being built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) on a 7-nanometer node. Looking ahead, however, TSMC is already talking about 6nm and even 5nm, the latter of which will bring improved logic density by 1.8X over 7nm, the company says. TSMC talked a little bit about its 5nm manufacturing process during a recent earnings call with investors. The company said its 5nm development is "well on track," having entered a phase called "risk production" in the first quarter. It expects a "tape out" in the first half of 2020. That is when designs by clients...
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While Intel is currently "stuck" on the 14nm process node for its volume production processors, other players in the industry have been shipping 7nm chips for months. 7nm SoCs have been developed by Apple, Huawei, and Samsung, while AMD has pushed out the 7nm Radeon VII and is preparing for volume shipments of 7nm Zen 2-based processors. Samsung, on the other hand, is already looking past the 7nm process node towards 5nm. The South Korean electronics giant announced this morning that it has completed development of its 5nm FinFET process technology that will be used in future SoCs that will power next-generation mobile devices. Samsung S3-line in Hwaseong, Korea, home to its EUV...
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TSMC has broken ground on a new 5nm fab that will be used to produce the world's first 5-nanometer chips starting in 2020. TSMC builds chips for numerous manufacturers, including NVIDIA, Qualcomm and many others. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile chips coming this year are built on the TSMC 7nm technology. With TSMC promising the first chips using its new 5nm tech in 2020, that would likely mean we can expect the first 5nm chips from fabless semiconductor partners like Qualcomm and others, roughly in that same time frame. The groundbreaking ceremony was held in Taiwan and the facility will reportedly be the largest manufacturing site for TSMC when completed. TSMC also expects that the capital...
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IBM has teamed up with semiconductor equipment suppliers and manufacturing bigwigs GlobalFoundries and Samsung to develop a new process for building silicon nanosheet transistors. This new process paves a path to 5-nanometer, with the subsequent "fingernail-sized" chips packing a staggering 30 billion transistors inside. Hooray for keeping Moore's Law intact. Image Source: Connie Zhou via IBM "This announcement is the latest example of the world-class research that continues to emerge from our groundbreaking public-private partnership in New York," said Gary Patton, CTO and Head of Worldwide R&D at GlobalFoundries. "As we make progress toward commercializing 7nm in 2018 at our Fab 8 manufacturing...
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