https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/tsmc-6nm-5-nm-80-percent-densityhttps://fuse.wikichip.org/news/2446/tsmc-demonstrates-a-7nm-arm-based-chiplet...https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/tsmc-6nm-5-nm-80-percent-densitySignificant news from ARM land and from TSMCThe main gist of all of this is that 5nm is HERE, now, ready for production in
early 2020. It however requires a redesign and re-layout of all of 7nm products to get all of the size and the extra 15 layer benefits that come with the new ASML direct burn 5nm-3nm scanner lines that folks are currently building.
TSMC's 6nm is also HERE, now, and it does NOT require a 7nm redesign/re-layout and it does offer 85% of the 5nm size benefits
but 6nm does not offer all the extra 15 layer benefits of ASML's newest 5nm lithography does offer.
TSMC is beginning to pump up all the ARM phone chip designers, offering them the many many core chiplet tech AMD has been using in a 5nm lithography 15 layer chiplet format. Specifically, these are 5nm 15 layer ARM processor chiplets that TSMC is currently talking about.We see AMD moving towards using 4nm Samsung and now suddenly TSMC is peddling AMD's chiplet tech and infinity fabric tech to the whole ARM world at 5nm/15 layer? Nice folks there at TSMC. How is it suddenly your role to be peddling other people's tech?
I am all cornfused, a bunch ....... who actually owns this tech?ARM Holdings and Qualcomm are acting kinda sorta slow on the uptake right now, as I would expect Qualcomm and ARM to be leading this sort of new tech wave, not TSMC.
It is possible that ARM Holdings is simply sitting mum on this new development as is their habit, waiting to give the first mover advantage to their first customer (Apple) with everybody knowing that TSMC is where Apple is building their A-14 chipset ....... and TSMC may have simply let the cat out of the bag
accidentally early and in a way that makes them look really really bad.
We have known for years that AMD had a ARM design license and we knew ARM tech existed inside AMD processors, but to suddenly find TSMC peddling the AMD chiplet stuff to the broader ARM cell phone world along with the Infinity Fabric that makes it all possible, well it is a right surprise to me. It certainly causes me to question who actually owns the tech that is involved .......
and makes me suspect what Apple is working on as well. TSMC is referring here to successful prove out runs of a very complex PC like chipset with a lots & lots of complexity and many many many cores .......
Apple's first PC level ARM chipset would look a lot like that, you know.
What we may also be seeing may be a form of Far Eastern rebellion against Trump's American Technology Transfer protectionism. We may also be simply seeing that AMD's chiplet tech was really generalistic ARM tech all along, and AMD was simply the first to move it over into PC uses.
For example, TSMC has now stated it will continue to do business with Huawei, and TSMC is now giving Huawei new technology apart from AMD, ARM and the USA. Remember please, Huawei is TSMC's largest non-Apple customer after all.
This current move from TSMC looks like it has TSMC assuming the rights to transfer some USA chiplet technology apart from the USA parent company ........
We assumed AMD was the originator of the tech ...... key word here is "assumed" I do believe.
I think ARM and TSMC need to clarify this situation, ASAP===================================================
First wave of clarifications arrives ........
Watch out boys and girls, TSMC is reaching over into the FOSS RISC-V and MIPS worlds and
tucking it all together themselves with some existing tech from ARM that is currently already licensed by all the phone chip builders.
TSMC is signalling that the phone chip guys (Huawei specifically) can build up better computer chips than Intel currently has "by doing the AMD thing"
just by using tech that is either free or has use rights that are already owned by Huawei and Mediatek and all the others.
Is this a Far Eastern reaction to the Trump tech embargo?Look to see Trump assign people to "look into this" and to try to create some fashion of payback for TSMC for breaking up Trumps tech embargo.
It is clear now that TSMC sees its bread buttered on the China side, not the USA side as the vast mass of chip sales volume now comes from India and the Orient .......
Quantum computing may create the tech wall that Trump needs, if he can get the USA Quantum creators grouped together behind the new tech wall that he builds.Global Foundry and Intel (and Intel's still massive build capacity) may well be a key part of this USA tech wall.
The tech that AMD and Cray develop to use in the new NSA supercomputer needs to go behind Trump's tech wall as well.
INTEL ----- get off your dead ass and MOVE YOURSELF, you can do this too off of your existing ARM design license. For you to still be dicking around while
everyone in the Orient moves past you is CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE on your beanpicker CEO's part.
https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/2446/tsmc-demonstrates-a-7nm-arm-based-chiplet...It is clear that TSMC considers this combined FOSS and ARM chiplet tech as coming from them and they have the rights to distribute it as they see fit ......
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https://wccftech.com/tsmcs-custom-built-octa-core-a72-chip-reaches-4ghz-at-1-...
TSMC’s design starts from a single chip with two chiplets on board. Each chiplet die is 4.4 mm by 6.2 mm with four Cortex A72 cores present. The cores have a custom L1 cache, and two 1 MiB L2 cache blocks on the die. An additional high-density bitcell 6 MiB L3 cache is also present. The cores can reach 4.0GHz at 1.20V, and 4.20 GHz at 1.375V. Additionally, the 1968-bit wide on-die mesh interconnects are capable of operating above 4GHz, and six of these are present on each die.
The two chiplets are connected to each other through TSMC’s Low-voltage-In-Package-INterconnect (LIPINCON). Each of these PHYs measures 0.42mm x 2.4mm, and can reach data transfer rates of 8Gb/p/s (Gigabit-per-pin-per-second) through a 2:1 multiplex function. LIPINCON also provides 0.56pJ/bit power efficiency and 1.6TB/s/mm˛ bandwidth density and 320GB/s bandwidth. It’s also important to note that more than two chiplets can be used with this design.
Through using CoWoS, TSMC is able to drive down power consumption for the chiplets, and TSMC has used a micro-bump pitch of 40µm in this design, and the two dies are separated by 100µm. These numbers put the Taiwanese fab ahead of Intel, and if TSMC continues its current trajectory, then it could very well expand its presence in the market in the future.OK, so it is some serious stuff, it is well thought out and
it shows how TSMC can use its 7nm, 6nm and 5nm direct burn EUV to simply outclass Intel at the PC game using technology all the phone players have already licensed from ARM.
This is Intel's worst nightmare -- effective competition from EVERYBODY in the world.
Intel is noticeably shaky right now and TSMC is flat out suggesting that ANY of the phone chipset builders (yep, any of them) could use and improve upon TSMC's 8 chiplet per chip design as shown and get TSMC to run PC class ARM processors off by the bajillions.
Give your imagination a practical functional boost here, use a RISC-V license on a completed and proven out FOSS PC chip design put together by a FOSS consortium using TSMC's ideas and simply make Intel passe'.
See, I can help Intel out too, just like TSMC did ........