AMD's Future Chips & SoC's: News, Info & Rumours.

[moek]

pls pls pls let this be true.

 

[goldstone77]

When looking at rumors/leaks like this I think it's a good idea to revisit what we know.

Thanks to David we know TSMC 7nm HPC 7.5T density is 67 MTr/mm2.

David Schor
67 MTr/mm2 and a 62nm pp (but I can't formally confirm the CPP value as it's behind NDA for now).

https://twitter.com/david_schor/status/1035716476836229120

TSMC set another industry record by launching two separate 7nm FinFET tracks: one optimized for mobile applications, the other for high performance computing applications.

http://www.tsmc.com/csr/en/update/innovationAndService/caseStudy/9/index.html

N7 HPC track provides 13% speed over N7 mobile (7.5T vs 6T), while it has passed the yield and qual tests (SRAM, FEOL, MEOL, BEOL) and MP-ready D0.

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7439-tsmc-technologies-mobile-hpc.html

TSMC Tips 7+, 12, 22nm Nodes
EUV rolls into 7+nm node in 2018
By Rick Merritt, 03.16.17 (note the date)

The 7nm HPC platform includes a new design flow being released in June as well as enhanced IP and process optimizations. It drove an ARM A72 to more than 4 GHz. The platform also supports on-chip magnetic inductors to create integrated voltage regulators.

The HPC platform includes high performance transistors that deliver a five percent speed gain over the vanilla 7nm process. Interestingly, TSMC described several techniques driving advances of 4-5 percent across various processes, suggesting the foundry is squeezing out gains wherever it can find them. An automotive variant of the 7nm process will be ready next year.

And keep this side note in mind.

Finally, TSMC will deliver late this year a machine-learning capability for limited functions on ARM A72 and A73 cores. The capabilities include predicting optimal cell clock-gating to bolster overall chip speeds 50-150 MHz.

The techniques use training models maintained by TSMC using open source algorithms such as Caffe. Designers will be able to create custom scripts they keep privately. Ultimately the service will span more processor types and functions.

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331489&page_number=3
Confirmation from TSMC 6 months later.
TSMC Assists Customers to Improve First-time Silicon Success
2017 Open Innovation Platform® Ecosystem Forum Demonstrated the Achievements of Collaboration with Partners
Jason S.T. Chen
2017/9/13

For HPC Design Enablement Platform, TSMC further enhanced 7nm and 7nm+_ in process and design solutions to support HPC speed and memory bandwidth requirements. TSMC has demonstrated a 4Ghz ARM core and provided the first Cache Coherence Interconnect for Accelerator (CCIX) silicon demonstration vehicle in 7nm process technology with Xilinx, Arm and Cadence.

Through machine learning, TSMC design enablement platforms produce optimized design constraints and EDA tool scripts, while supporting customers to best utilize the commercial EDA tools from our OIP ecosystem partners.

This collaboration model enables TSMC and our OIP ecosystem partners to focus on our respective strengths, while creating synergy to team up and bring machine learning innovation to the whole design community.

http://www.tsmc.com/csr/en/update/innovationAndService/caseStudy/4/index.html
TSMC Updates its Silicon Menu
First 7-nm chips, EUV migration described
By Rick Merritt, 09.14.17

Separately, TSMC reported progress using machine learning to achieve gains such as better route groupings in ARM A72 and A53 cores delivering up to 12% performance gains after synthesis. The foundry will release software scripts at the end of the year that its customers can use as a starting point on their own efforts to eke out more advances.

Cadence is applying machine learning in both verification and its Innovus place-and-route tools, said Anirudh Devgan, who manages two of the company’s divisions. “There are a lot of things that can be done using machine learning,” he said, noting 12% improvements in a 10-nm design.

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332293&page_number=2
What do we know about the A72?

The A72 sees an even more significant reduction when using a modern FinFET process, such as TSMC’s 16nm FinFET+, where an A72 core stays within a 750mW power envelope at 2.5GHz, according to ARM.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/arm-cortex-a72-architecture,4424.html#p2

So, using 7nm HPC, 7.5T, TSMC was able to push an A72 over 4GHz. Utilizing A.I. we could see a 12% gain in performance depending on individual efforts made by customers using these tools. ~4GHz X 1.12 = 4.48Ghz

This is TSMC's 16/12nm compared to it's on 7nm HPC. What we have now is GlobalFoundries 14/12nm process. TSMC's 16/12nm cells are a little larger than GlobalFoundries 14/12nm cell size. So, we don't have an apples to apples comparison to make. I can "guess" that TSMC 7nm will be a better process than GlobalFoundries 14/12nm. Based on the information I would guess around 4.5 GHz.

 

[aldaia]

And yet annother HPC win for AMD
https://www.hpcwire.com/2018/12/13/contract-signed-for-new-finnish-supercomputer/

At this stage I lost count of how many Supercomputers have been anounced using AMD EPYC

 

[gamerk316]

So, using 7nm HPC, 7.5T, TSMC was able to push an A72 over 4GHz. Utilizing A.I. we could see a 12% gain in performance depending on individual efforts made by customers using these tools. ~4GHz X 1.12 = 4.48Ghz

This is TSMC's 16/12nm compared to it's on 7nm HPC. What we have now is GlobalFoundries 14/12nm process. TSMC's 16/12nm cells are a little larger than GlobalFoundries 14/12nm cell size. So, we don't have an apples to apples comparison to make. I can "guess" that TSMC 7nm will be a better process than GlobalFoundries 14/12nm. Based on the information I would guess around 4.5 GHz.

That's assuming that no other changes are made to the underlying architecture that increase the power profile so you can't hit those clocks. I figure 4.2 + architecture improvements is more reasonable.

 

[-Fran-]

Considering they were able to squeeze ~200Mhz extra from 14nm to 14nm+/12nm with the 2700X gen, I'd say an extra 400Mhz on top of that (as top single core clock) is not that far fetched for the 12nm to 7nm jump. I'm even thinking 4.5Ghz turbo for the 3K series is conservative. They can keep the 125W ceiling and give me 4.5Ghz+ turbo. My 2700X wants to reach 4.4Ghz all the time, but it gets really hot (sucks a lot of voltage to try and get there), but it most definitely can. I'm sure with a better process, they don't need to tweak the uArch that much to reach those clocks really easily.

Cheers

 

[xeon_fan]

GlobalFoundries 14nm/12nm were quite low power nodes, TSMC should give some additional MHZ not only because of 7nm ... or at least I hope so.

 

[goldstone77]

AMD Keynote

AMD guests and its president and CEO Dr. Lisa Su will provide a view into the diverse applications for new computing technologies ranging from solving some of the world’s toughest challenges to the future of gaming, entertainment and virtual reality with the potential to redefine modern life. AMD is catapulting computing, gaming, and visualization technologies forward with the world’s first 7nm high-performance CPUs and GPUs, providing the power required to reach technology’s next horizon.
Wednesday, January 9, 9:00 – 10:00 AM

https://www.ces.tech/conference/Keynotes/AMD-Keynote.aspx
There is a link to live stream follow the link.

https://twitter.com/CES/status/1078719776506200064

 

[goldstone77]

IEDM 2018 Imec on Interconnect Metals Beyond Copper
by Scotten Jones
Published on 12-28-2018 08:00 AM

Industry experience
Alternate materials have multiple potential usages in interconnect stacks:

Caps – capping a Cu interconnect line with Co increases the electromigration resistance of the line. TSMC has been doing this since 16nm.
Barrier/seed – when Cu is plated a seed layer is required to plate onto. When Cu was first introduced a TaN barrier with a Cu seed were deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD). Co (TSMC) and even Ru (Intel) seed layers are being introduced because copper wets better to these films improving fill. Ru seed layers also produce lower resistance plated copper.
Contacts – Co filled contacts have been introduced at 10nm (similar to foundry 7nm) by Intel and 7nm by TSMC. We don’t yet know for sure whether Samsung has Co filled contacts at 7nm but my expectation is they will.
Interconnect – Intel has introduced Co interconnects for metals 0 and 1 at 10nm. The resistance of the lines is higher than it would be for Cu but the lines are short and the via resistance is lower and electromigration is better. Imec has previously stated to me that around 36nm pitch is where Co may begin to offer a benefit and that Intel’s minimum metal pitch. You can see that write up here.

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7923-iedm-2018-imec-interconnect-metals-beyond-copper.html#comments

This could potentially spell good news for Ryzen 7nm to have better frequencies.

 

[goldstone77]

Interesting things brewing from a Russian retailer!

https://twitter.com/SaiKrishanKumar/status/1080357737509212160

 

[goldstone77]

It is hard to determine whether this is a leak or just a placeholder for attention, but it the timing seems quite interesting, considering we are just days away from CES 2019 Keynote where Zen2 are expected to be announced.

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-9-3800x-matisse-listed-with-16-cores-and-125w-tdp

 

[-Fran-]

That Ryzen 7 3700X looks like a winner to me. 12C/24T for mainstream is plenty horizontal muscle and that 5Ghz turbo sounds sexy. That Ryzen 9 is going to be an interesting ah heck though. Those 125W for 3.9Ghz base is quite the beast on 16C with a 4.7Ghz turbo to boot. So, that thing will suck 170W at full power. I'm even willing to say 200W is not that crazy with great cooling.

I also expect them to keep solder.

And pray that it is true; that lineup is really orgasmic XD

Cheers!

 

[jdwii]

I think its fake. All i'll say.

 

[goldstone77]

3 more days until AMD Key Note at CES
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3341285/amd-naples-server-cpu-info-rumours/page-42.html#21623615

 

[goldstone77]

AMD at CES 2019

AMD
Last streamed live on Jan 3, 2019

Watch AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su's keynote at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, showcasing the diverse applications for new computing technologies with the potential to redefine modern life.

https://www.youtube.com/c/AMD/live

 

[aldaia]

Wow, Ryzen 3000 is on par with intel at nearly half the power.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13829/amd-ryzen-3rd-generation-zen-2-pcie-4-eight-core

Only 8-core was anounced but looking at the package there is still hope for future 16 core processors.

 

[vMax]

Wow, Ryzen 3000 is on par with intel at nearly half the power.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13829/amd-ryzen-3rd-generation-zen-2-pcie-4-eight-core

Only 8-core was announced but looking at the package there is still hope for future 16 core processors.

Nothing was announced other than an 8 core competitor to the 9900K and it was directly competing with the 9900K...In the mainstream for next gen Ryzen 2 is up to 8 cores and 16 threads!!!. What annoys me hugely is the leaks from adordedTV and the likes where 12 core and 16 core CPU's were list to be launched (hopefully) but announced at CES...with pricing that was quiet simply staggering...And if people are reading into this that there is still hope for a 12 core or 16 core...boy we need are heads examined as why would they destroy the money maker monster that Threadripper is with the far higher margins than Ryzen?...... I am pretty sure many were ready to buy and were holding of...Now we hear it won't launch until the middle of the year so I will just wait out the whole year to see what Sunny Cove brings to the table and then make a decision...this was a huge, huge let down and the first time I have fallen for the hype....Never again.

 

[CountMike]

Wow, Ryzen 3000 is on par with intel at nearly half the power.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13829/amd-ryzen-3rd-generation-zen-2-pcie-4-eight-core

Only 8-core was announced but looking at the package there is still hope for future 16 core processors.

Nothing was announced other than an 8 core competitor to the 9900K and it was directly competing with the 9900K...In the mainstream for next gen Ryzen 2 is up to 8 cores and 16 threads!!!. What annoys me hugely is the leaks from adordedTV and the likes where 12 core and 16 core CPU's were list to be launched (hopefully) but announced at CES...with pricing that was quiet simply staggering...And if people are reading into this that there is still hope for a 12 core or 16 core...boy we need are heads examined as why would they destroy the money maker monster that Threadripper is with the far higher margins than Ryzen?...... I am pretty sure many were ready to buy and were holding of...Now we hear it won't launch until the middle of the year so I will just wait out the whole year to see what Sunny Cove brings to the table and then make a decision...this was a huge, huge let down and the first time I have fallen for the hype....Never again.

That would be R5 3600(x) which make historical sense, R5 1600 was one of first Ryzens released. Catching up with I9 9900 means 5GHz turbo/OC.
What is disappointing is time of release, mid year and that probably means June - July

 

[goldstone77]

https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1083099086880952320

 

[aldaia]

Isn't it obvious that AMD already planned for future 12 and/or 16 core cpus.

 

[goldstone77]

Sure, but it's always nice to have verbal confirmation from the CEO!

 

[-Fran-]

I don't want nor need another 8c/16t inside the CPU. What I'd like to see is a niftly placed single/dual stack of HBM that acts as L4 or a couple of Vega cores in there.

There's space, so why not?

Cheers!

 

[jdwii]

So, I get 1800 in R15 with my 2700X
New Zen 2 8C/16T chip gets 2057
So, it’s 14.3% faster

On load in R15 my chip runs around 4025-4050mhz

Amd also improved IPC a general guess would say 7% of this gain is probably from IPC alone so if we take IPC into consideration this pre-production chip was probably running at 4.3-4.4Ghz on all cores.

Mid 2019 so probably July would be my guess build more hype at Computex this means Amd really doesn’t have a lot of time to improve those scores as they must start shipping out these units and manufacturing them.

4.2Ghz base speed
4.4Ghz all core turbo
4.4-4.7Ghz XFR
My guess for Zen 2

 

[goldstone77]

I don't want nor need another 8c/16t inside the CPU. What I'd like to see is a niftly placed single/dual stack of HBM that acts as L4 or a couple of Vega cores in there.

There's space, so why not?

Cheers!

You better believe that's coming! Lisa said she pays attention to what we say on Twitter and Reddit!

 

[goldstone77]

Desktop like performance to a thin and light notebook with all day battery life.
https://youtu.be/bibZyMjY2K4?t=2138

 

[gamerk316]

I don't want nor need another 8c/16t inside the CPU. What I'd like to see is a niftly placed single/dual stack of HBM that acts as L4 or a couple of Vega cores in there.

There's space, so why not?

Cheers!

Unlikely; the latencies would almost certainly be as high, if not higher, then DDR, which would defeat the purpose.

CPUs don't typically need massive amounts of bandwidth; there's a reason why doubling RAM speed maybe gives a 10% performance boost. What matters more is latency; CPUs typically operate on small datasets that need to be accessed quickly. CPU cache exists sorely to hide memory access times. The bandwidth offered by DDR is acceptable for 90%+ of the tasks a CPU needs to perform.

GPUs, by contrast, operate on massive datasets that aren't that latency sensitive (16ms is an eternity by processing standards), so it makes sense they use high bandwidth RAM.