10nm Archives - VR World

AMD, Analysis, Apple, ARM, Breaking, Business, Graphics, Hardware, Intel, Nvidia, Samsung, VR World

Intel to Buy Imagination Technologies or AMD’s RTG?

This week started with a milestone announcement of Japanese SoftBank moving in to acquire ARM Holdings for a record $32 billion. Many analysts lamented that the takeover was a result of Brexit, even though everyone in their right minds should know that negotiations of this magnitude take years and typically are made in complete silence for 6-18 months (due dilligence and all that jazz). However, this might not be the only acquisition in the modest pool of British semiconductor players. As we reported on multiple occasions, Intel is reorganizing, i.e. restructuring the company. As a part of that reorganization, the company performed no less than three rounds

AMD, Apple, Breaking, Business, CPU, Hardware, Intel, News, Nvidia, Samsung

TSMC Tapes out 10nm A11 Processors for Apple

Ten years, even five years ago Intel was the undisputed process leader, and if you wanted to see how the new process node would look like, you would wait to see a new processor coming from Intel architecture. That was the unwritten law of the semiconductor industry, with an occasional blimp when TSMC would introduce a half-node step, beating Intel’s 90/65/45/32nm with 80nm, 55nm, 40nm and 28nm GPUs for ATI and Nvidia. Today, Intel’s missed approach to mobile resulted in company loosing the process node advantage, and ultimately being forced to cancel the most of Atom product family. And now, to add insult to injury, DigiTimes (also known

Memory & Storage Space, News, press releases, Samsung

Samsung First to 10nm, Launches New DDR4 Memory

Samsung Electronics, world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer (according to SIA) just won the race to 10 nanometer (10nm-class) process by launching DDR4 SDRAM memory chips which utilize the new process node. However, this ’10nm-class’ is not exactly precise 10nm, as the distance between the cells / transistors can vary between 10-19nm. If you’re in the semiconductor industry, this will not be surprising as Intel’s famous 22nm process was considered 26-28nm process. The new DDR4 memory chips come in 8Gbit (1GB) capacity, supporting the frequency of up to 3.2 GHz (1.6 GHz in DDR mode). At the same time, power consumption is reduced by 10% when compared to

Breaking, CPU, Hardware, Intel, News

Tick-Tock is Dead: Intel Confirms New Processor Cadence

Several months ago, we exclusively disclosed the new architectural cadence for Intel processors. After a decade of manufacturing processors in an bi-annual cycle (Tick – new architecture, old process; Tock – new process and ‘old’ architecture), Intel’s SEC 10-K filing (PDF download) officially killed the Tick-Tock cadence, moving to a three-fold product line-up for a single manufacturing process. Approximately four years ago, Tick-Tock encountered a first significant hiccup with Ivy Bridge being a 22nm version of Sandy Bridge. Ivy Bridge was the first processor from Intel that we could call APU, instead of a CPU – as 40% of the die was allocated for new graphics architecture. The

Analysis, Breaking, CPU, Hardware

Next Gen Processor Performance Revealed

There is a trend of large companies snapping up smaller chip designers, all at the time when several next=generation processor designers are starting to exit stealth modes and gain traction. Over the last couple of months, companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle – all have acquired at least one promising hardware designer or manufacturer. Soft Machines is one of the ‘new kids on the silicon block’, planning to do a ‘one up’ and build all-new processing architecture. Variable Instruction Set Computing or VISC is their brainchild, and on paper, we’re talking about a seriously efficient and flexible processor architecture which just may take sweep the rug

AMD, Analysis, Business, CPU, Enterprise, Hardware, Intel, Memory & Storage Space, News, Opinion

End of the Tick-Tock Strategy for Intel?

Given the slow disintegration or refocusing of its competitors, we were not all too surprised when Intel started to slow down its famous “Tick-Tock” manufacturing cadence. Originally introduced in 2006 with the “Conroe”, Core 2 Duo processors, Tick-Tock was mixed between a new microarchitecture and current manufacturing process (Tock), and a new process, die-shrink processor with some architectural optimizations (Tick). Further separation in Tick-Tock was a cadence between mainstream parts (desktop, mobile) and high-end parts (gaming, workstations) – Tick or Tock would always debut as mainstream parts, followed by high-end 6-12 months after. High end would typically mean Intel Xeon and Core i7 ‘X’ line-up.

3D, Companies, CPU, Exclusive, Hardware, Intel, Opinion

Intel’s 2015 Roadmap Conundrum: Tick-Tock is Not a Swiss Clock

In my 30-year career as an IT hardware expert, I’ve seen thousands of roadmaps, leaked, manage-leaked and official alike. Many were on target, yet still quite a few headed for the “failed” dustbin. Among all of them, Intel’s “tick-tock” plan was probably the most ambitious one in terms of attempted consistency and predictability. Knowing the multiple interlinked uncertainties of semiconductor process, CPU architecture, ecosystem changes and others, it was a wonder in itself that it lasted for several years, until the major slippages occurred in the Sandy Bridge generation. From then on, not only there were major delays introduced to the high end lines as the

Search the site