AMD: Pirate Islands (R* 3** series) Speculation/Rumor Thread

Ah I didn't realize the alliance had diverged to such a degree. Thanks for the clarification.
 
AMD's Q1 2014 earnings call transcript points towards no chips in 20 nm this year.

Could we see something like the low-end and midrange Pirate Islands chips in 2014 on 28 nm for lower cost (especially whatever succeeds Pitcairn/Curacao since that doesn't have TrueAudio) and the high-end Pirate Island chip in 2015 on 20 nm, or would it be better to go all 20 nm in 2015?

From a cost/transistor perspective, it makes more sense to have the lower end parts on 28nm. Not to mention availability and yields.

However, I could see one area where they are eager to move to 20nm fast. ARM Server. They claim that their 28nm part is on track for Q4. Cost/transistor is not such an issue in this segment and power is more important so I'm sure they'd wanna move to 20nm as soon as possible.
IMHO both IHVs are in the same boat right now for 20SoC. No idea about AMD's Bermuda but I'd like to stand corrected that GM200 didn't have its tape out yet.

Haven't heard any news on GM200's tape out yet.
I kinda hope that both come out with a large 28nm design, just to have a process neutral comparison of the progression of the state-of-the-art in design in 3 years. The GTX750Ti was already very nice, but a large silicon version would be even better.

IOW: I hope Erinyes is at least partially correct.

And then they should shrink the identical design asap, to have a design neutral comparison of the progression of process. ;)

I hope I'm at least partially correct as well :LOL: And yea I was thinking that as well..those comparisons would be extremely useful and interesting to see.
I don't know about IBM (their constraints are pretty different from those of other foundries) but I'm fairly sure Samsung/GloFo's 14nm process is 14nm transistors with 20nm BEOL, just like TSMC.

Yep the only difference is that Samsung claims that its process has a higher density than TSMC. TSMC's 16nm process has a very small density improvement over 20nm, ~5%. Samsung claims a 15% improvement for their 14nm process.
 
Yep the only difference is that Samsung claims that its process has a higher density than TSMC. TSMC's 16nm process has a very small density improvement over 20nm, ~5%. Samsung claims a 15% improvement for their 14nm process.
Did Samsung directly reference the density of TSMC's 20nm?
What if TSMC's 20nm is denser than Samsung's? Lesser scaling from a better starting point can still lead to the same end result.

Granted, as noted before, there is a metric ton of PR garbage inherent to any density discussion.
The headline density numbers may vary depending on what structures are being used as the metric. Less regular logic, a global average, or highly regular SRAM would have different values. Do we know which PR statement is the source for both?

Headline density may or may not be used in a given product, and marketing pressures can lead to the quoting of higher density numbers that some products would avoid using.

The other question is whether TSCM's or Samsung's 20nm are 20nm, or the same value that is not 20nm, or even if they're talking about the same critical measures, or if those measures are not offset by other unmentioned quirks or side effects.

Or if the 16/14nm metrics are even consistent within manufacturers, much less between them.
 
Did Samsung directly reference the density of TSMC's 20nm?
What if TSMC's 20nm is denser than Samsung's? Lesser scaling from a better starting point can still lead to the same end result.

Granted, as noted before, there is a metric ton of PR garbage inherent to any density discussion.
The headline density numbers may vary depending on what structures are being used as the metric. Less regular logic, a global average, or highly regular SRAM would have different values. Do we know which PR statement is the source for both?

Headline density may or may not be used in a given product, and marketing pressures can lead to the quoting of higher density numbers that some products would avoid using.

The other question is whether TSCM's or Samsung's 20nm are 20nm, or the same value that is not 20nm, or even if they're talking about the same critical measures, or if those measures are not offset by other unmentioned quirks or side effects.

Or if the 16/14nm metrics are even consistent within manufacturers, much less between them.

I wonder why there's so much marketing bullshit when foundries' customers are experts who ought to be immune to it.
 
Probably the managers are still the ones ultimately deciding on which foundries to fab products in. If the number of experts in their company is diminishing or if they are a horde of proverbial engineers which are not highly skilled in communicating..

So maybe the foundries are on to something :D
 
Perhaps not every team is wholly immune, or maybe the execs above the engineers aren't.
Their stockholders, and their customers' stockholders definitely aren't.
What else are can they say?

At any rate, as briefly interesting as a stagnant node generational comparison might get, I'd rather the designers nut up and do something interesting instead of another .1 increment to the "just finally not embarrassing" stuff they released years ago, or freaking Llano, blech.
Node transitions aren't a guarantee of courage, but at least there might be something akin to movement that isn't an auto-increment script to the numerals on the box or another voucher.
At least the scrypt mining bubble had the bonus of being a farce.

That's not to say that it's a good enough economic argument. What bores or excites me isn't going to drive them much in the way of revenue.
 
Yep the only difference is that Samsung claims that its process has a higher density than TSMC. TSMC's 16nm process has a very small density improvement over 20nm, ~5%. Samsung claims a 15% improvement for their 14nm process.

When Morris Chang rebutted Intels claims about TSMC scaling, he used the following graph. link

As has been said already, the density improvement depends on your assumed mix of features, so grains of salt are recommended. Nevertheless, this is TSMC themselves showing the 16nmFinFet process being a small step in terms of density (but still a step), whereas the 16nmFF -> 10nmFF is a full nodal change.

On a grander scale, plotting process advances vs time over the last 20 years paints a dire picture, and it won't get easier the next decade. Lithographic advances will diminish in importance as a driver of performance as we progress in time. Remains to be seen where that leaves the industry. The IC business as a whole is still growing at a healthy clip, scaling woes notwithstanding.
 
Going from the discussion at the (current) latest posts in the Volcanic Islands thread:

From eXtremeSpec: "AMD Pirate Islands Can be Announced The Summer."

The page links to a graphic containing claimed upcoming AMD GPUs and their specs:

R9 390X: Bermuda, 4224 CCs, 512-bit bus, October 2014.
R9 380X: Fiji, 3072 CCs, 384-bit bus, 2015.
R9 370X: Treasure Island, 1536 CCs, 256-bit bus, July 2014.

All on TSMC 20 nm. Note that most of these specs have question marks beside them.

If true then these chips should give the considerable performance jump that many have been waiting for. I think that 20 nm in July 2014 seems rather early though.

Since we now know that AMD will not have any GPUs on 20nm this year can we concur that all of the other data from eXtremeSpec is just made up?

No AMD 20nm graphics this year

When asked whether AMD will have have any 20nm GPUs this year or next year, Lisa Su SVP and General Manager of AMD’s Global Business Unit said: “We are 28nm this year"


http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/34562-no-amd-20nm-graphics-this-year
 
Since we now know that AMD will not have any GPUs on 20nm this year can we concur that all of the other data from eXtremeSpec is just made up?

28 nm is not of interest I guess to anyone anymore but if those are on 20 nm (let's not write them off just yet) and with a little bit more imagination to the speculation, we can guess that those are tape-out dates or kind of.
 
AMD to Launch New Single-GPU Card This Summer, to Take on GTX 780 Ti
http://www.techpowerup.com/200721/a...u-card-this-summer-to-take-on-gtx-780-ti.html
AMD is reportedly working on a new single-GPU graphics card SKU to compete with the likes of GeForce GTX 780 Ti, and perhaps even take a swing at the GTX TITAN Black, since it's not too far ahead of the GTX 780 Ti at single-display gaming. The new SKU will be more than just a clock-speed bump, it will leverage HBM (high-bandwidth memory), a cutting-edge new technology that relies on stacking multiple DRAM dies with dedicated memory paths into a single package, cutting down on power-draw, thermals, and PCB real-estate.

This news post from a few days ago is what got me thinking about it.
 
That page gets things wrong about HBM. It states it will have 128 bits per stack, which limits things to 4 stacks on a card because the GPU has a 512-bit bus.

A single layer in an HBM stack has 2 128-bit channels, with a 4-high stack having 8 channels/1024 bits.
A single stack by itself is more than what is claimed to be possible, and until a higher density revision of the DRAM is available, 4 stacks for an aggregate 4096-bit memory bus would be necessary to keep capacity the same.
 
Check CodeXL 1.4 PDF
you will see Volcanic Island vs Hawai Sea Island (ASIC)

Check C++ AMP Lambda API, which also for Xbox One
You will see AMD Next Generation Tiled GPU vs older Untiled GPU

AMD will moved to Tiled Architecture
 
Its been what 6 or 8 months since the r290x was released ? Better yields plus a water cooler would most likely make for a very fast single chip design from amd
 
Check CodeXL 1.4 PDF
you will see Volcanic Island vs Hawai Sea Island (ASIC)
Only reference to Volcanic Island, which Hawaii should be too, is that 1.4 adds support for Volcanic Islands.
Check C++ AMP Lambda API, which also for Xbox One
You will see AMD Next Generation Tiled GPU vs older Untiled GPU

AMD will moved to Tiled Architecture

Where exactly?
 
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