SoCs
During the opening keynote delivered by AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su at Computex 2024, AMD finally lifted the lid on their highly-anticipated Zen 5 microarchitecture. The backbone for the next couple of years of everything CPU at AMD, the company unveiled their plans to bring Zen 5 in the consumer market, announcing both their next-generation mobile and desktop products at the same time. With a tight schedule that will see both platforms launch within weeks of each other, today AMD is taking their first step with the launch of the Ryzen AI 300 series – codenamed Strix Point – their new Zen 5-powered mobile SoC. The latest and greatest from AMD, the Strix Point brings significant architectural improvements across AMD's entire IP portfolio. Headlining the...
TSMC Launches New N12e Process: FinFET at 0.4V for IoT
One of the main drivers for the semiconductor industry is the growth in always-connected devices that require silicon inside, either for compute, communication, or control. The ‘Internet of Things&rsquo...
27 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/27/2020TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm
One of the side announcements made during TSMC’s Technology Symposium was that it already has customers on hand with product development progressing for its future 3nm process node technology...
2 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/27/2020Where are my GAA-FETs? TSMC to Stay with FinFET for 3nm
As we passed that 22nm to 16nm barrier, almost all the major semiconductor fabrication companies on the leading edge transitioned from planar transistors to FinFET transistors. The benefits of...
37 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/26/2020‘Better Yield on 5nm than 7nm’: TSMC Update on Defect Rates for N5
One of the key metrics on how well a semiconductor process is developing is looking at its quantitative chip yield – or rather, its defect density. A manufacturing process...
107 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/25/2020342 Transistors for Every Person In the World: Cerebras 2nd Gen Wafer Scale Engine Teased
One of the highlights of Hot Chips from 2019 was the startup Cerebras showcasing its product – a large ‘wafer-scale’ AI chip that was literally the size of a...
32 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/18/2020Intel’s 11th Gen Core Tiger Lake SoC Detailed: SuperFin, Willow Cove and Xe-LP
At the start of the year, Intel ‘foolishly’ handed me a wafer of its next generation Tiger Lake processors, as the moment it came into my hands I attempted...
71 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/13/2020NUVIA Phoenix Targets +40-50% ST Performance Over Zen 2 for Only 33% the Power
In November 2019, the company NUVIA broke out of stealth mode. Founded by former senior Apple and Google processor architects, John Bruno, Manu Gulati and Gerard Williams III, the...
50 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/11/2020Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 865+: Breaking the 3GHz Threshold
Today Qualcomm is announcing an update to its extremely successful Snapdragon 865 SoC: the new Snapdragon 865+. The Snapdragon 865 had already seen tremendous success with over 140 different...
88 by Andrei Frumusanu on 7/8/2020HPC Systems Special Offer: Two A64FX Nodes in a 2U for $40k
It was recently announced that the Fugaku supercomputer, located at Riken in Japan, has scored the #1 position on the TOP500 supercomputer list, as well as #1 positions in...
38 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/26/2020AMD Succeeds in its 25x20 Goal: Renoir Crosses the Line in 2020
One of the stories bubbling away in the background of the industry is the AMD self-imposed ‘25x20’ goal. Starting with performance in 2014, AMD committed to itself, to customers...
83 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/25/2020The Next Phase: Apple Lays Out Plans To Transition Macs from x86 to Apple SoCs
After many months of rumors and speculation, Apple confirmed this morning during their annual WWDC keynote that the company intends to transition away from using x86 processors at the...
241 by Ryan Smith on 6/22/2020Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 690: 5G & A77 In The Mid-Range
Today Qualcomm is extending its 5G SoC portfolio down to the Snapdragon 600-series, introducing the new Snapdragon 690 platform and chip. The new design is a more significant upgrade...
24 by Andrei Frumusanu on 6/16/2020Arm Announces Ethos-N78 NPU: Bigger And More Efficient
Yesterday Arm released the new Cortex-A78, Cortex-X1 CPUs and the new Mali-G78 GPU. Alongside the new “key” IPs from the company, we also saw the reveal of the newest...
34 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/27/2020Arm's New Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1 Microarchitectures: An Efficiency and Performance Divergence
2019 was a great year for Arm. On the mobile side of things one could say it was business as usual, as the company continued to see successes with...
192 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/26/2020Arm Announces The Mali-G78 GPU: Evolution to 24 Cores
Today as part of Arm’s 2020 TechDay announcements, alongside the release of the brand-new Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1 CPUs, Arm is also revealing its brand-new Mali-G78 and Mali-G68 GPU...
36 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/26/2020MediaTek Announces Dimensity 820 Mid-Range SoC With More Performance
Today MediaTek is announcing a refresh of the Dimensity 800 mid-range SoC – a new 5G chipset that had only been announced earlier this year at CES. The newer...
9 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/18/2020Nvidia Announces New Drive Platforms With Orin and Ampere
Nvidia’s Orin SoC chipset had been on Nvidia’s roadmaps for over 2 years now, and last December we got the first new details of the new automotive oriented silicon...
37 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/14/2020Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 768G: Higher-bin 765 up to 2.8GHz
Today alongside with the launch of the Xiaomi Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition, Qualcomm is announcing the new Snapdragon 768G SoC which powers the device. The new SoC is...
34 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/11/2020MediaTek Announces Dimensity 1000+ SoC
Today MediaTek announced a follow-up in its SoC line-up with the new Dimensity 1000+. This seems to be a binned or revisioned variant of the Dimensity 1000 announced last...
35 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/7/2020Apple’s A12Z Processor Confirmed to Reuse A12X Silicon
Last month Apple introduced its latest generation of iPad Pro tablets, and much to the surprise of many, the new iDevices didn’t come with a high-end variant of Apple’s...
57 by Ryan Smith on 4/13/2020