Items tagged with 7nm
There is a core war taking place between AMD and Intel, with both companies designing CPUs with increasing numbers of physical cores and threads to throw at compute workloads. This is happening in the mainstream space as well, not just in the enthusiast and server sectors. AMD currently has the lead in that regard, and may aim to keep it with Zen 2, which is rumored to include 16-core CPU options. Before we dive into the rumored Zen 2 details, let's talk a moment about the naming scheme. Zen is the name of the underlying architecture in AMD's Ryzen and Threadripper CPUs. In the mainstream market,...
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Things are looking up for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) after the company posted a decline in revenue for its quarter ending in June. TSMC is now predicting significant increases in revenue moving through the third and fourth quarters of 2018. The gain in revenue is, according to industry sources, thanks to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 11 Series GPU and Apple's A12 SoC. Apple is rolling out three new iPhones in September, according to rumors, that will all use the A12 SoC that TSMC builds on its 7nm process technology. NVIDIA is also tapping TSMC for its GeForce GTX 11 GPU tech...
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Everyone wants some of what TSMC is cooking with its new 7nm process that will be used for chips from multiple companies. TSMC's 7nm production lines will be used by NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sony, and Apple. To meet the crushing demand for the parts, TSMC is reportedly accelerating its production schedule. Sources are claiming that many of TSMC's fabless customers are skipping the 10nm process tech more readily available and moving directly to 7nm chips. So far in addition to the companies previously mentioned HiSilicon, MediaTek, and Xilinx have all confirmed they will be joining in on the TSMC...
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AMD last week teased a press photo of a 7-nanometer Vega product, the Radeon Instinct, aimed at machine learning and artificial intelligence workloads. The company didn't get into detailed specs or performance, both of which are of interest, considering that 7nm Vega GPUs could potentially end up in consumer graphics cards at some point. But in the absence of official data, some benchmarks of the new card have popped up in Futuremark's 3DMark 11 database. Before getting to the benchmarks, one thing to keep in mind is that it's likely an engineering sample and not necessarily the final design that...
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Hot off the heels of launching a new generation of Ryzen processors built on a refined 12-nanometer FinFET manufacturing process (Zen+), AMD is now looking ahead to next year, which is when it will roll out Zen 2. It won't be a paper launch, either—during a recent earnings call with investors, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed that AMD is already sampling its 7nm Zen 2 processors and is gearing up for a volume launch in 2019. "We have a 7nm GPU based on Vega that we'll sample later this year. We have a 7nm server CPU that we'll sample later this year. And then, obviously, we have a number of...
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AMD's current generation Vega graphics architecture – which powers its Radeon RX Vega family of graphics cards -- is based on a 14nm manufacturing process, but the chip company is already moving along with next generation process technology. During the company's conference call with analysts following its Q1 2018 earnings report (which it knocked out of the park, by the way), AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su made some comments regarding its upcoming 7nm GPUs. "I'm also happy to report that our next-generation 7-nanometer Radeon Instinct product, optimized for machine learning workloads, is running...
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We are just a few days away from the comsumer launch of AMD’s next generation Vega graphics architecture, which will underpin the Radeon RX Vega family. However, there is already talk about what’s coming after Vega; and that is Navi. Up until this point, not much has been said about Navi architecture, other than vague descriptions citing “scalability” and “next generation memory”. Other than that, we’ve been told that Navi will be built on a 7nm FinFET process when it launches next year. Today, however, a new report is suggesting that Navi will be the first GPU from AMD with circuity that is dedicated...
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The word from South Korea is that Samsung plans to invest $6.98 billion (8 trillion South Korean Won) into extending its high-tech semiconductor production lines. Specifically, Samsung is looking to remain on the cutting edge by making supplemental investments into its 10-nanometer production lines while building out new facilities capable of producing 7nm semiconductors.Samsung has some empty space located in Hwasung-si that it plans to fill with equipment than can fabricate 10nm chips. It has already ordered the necessary machinery from major domestic and foreign partners. The investments will...
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ARM and TSMC have become quite the duo over the years, combining the latter's cutting-edge process technologies with the former's processor IP. It is a partnership that has been working, hence why the two committed earlier this year to collaborating on a marketable 7nm FinFET chip. The fruits of their efforts have paid off—ARM announced today that it has licensed its Artisan physical IP platform for TSMC's 7nm FinFET process technology to Xilinx, the fabless semiconductor company known for inventing the field programmable gate array (FPGA). Xilinx isn't a new customer by any means. It has partnered...
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IBM Research on Thursday announced that it has produced the semiconductor industry's first 7-nanometer node test chips with functioning transistors. The accomplishment was a joint effort with partners GlobalFoundries, Samsung, and SUNY Polytechnic Institute's Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. It's also an important milestone in IBM's $3 billion research initiative announced last year. The initiative is a five-year plan that calls for IBM to heavily invest in a pair of broad research and early stage development programs to push the limits of chip technology. Getting to 7nm was one of...
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Say it loud and clear with us: "Seven nanometers." That's pretty much a pipe dream right now, both in terms of how far removed we are from that achievement -- 7nm represents a chip technology that's three generations away -- and the technological hurdles required to get there. Nevertheless, IBM wants to make sure we get there, and help accelerate the process, the company announced plans to invest a hearty $3 billion over the next 5 years into chip R&D efforts. IBM's investment will be split into two broad research and early stage development programs, both of which are intended to push the...
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