AMD Excavator on 28 nm, some production moving back to GF?

[Fjodor2001]

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...-production-is-moving-back-to-globalfoundries

AMD leak confirms that Excavator APU [actually Carrizo APU using Excavator CPU cores] will be 28nm, and that some production is moving back to GlobalFoundries
[...]
A reader tipped us off to a forum post over at SemiAccurate where someone noticed LinkedIn data suggesting that Carrizo, AMD’s first APU with an Excavator-class CPU, is built on 28nm.

Just leaks/rumors currently though, as indicated by the text in the article.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I said so on this very board that XV was a 28nm part.

 

[norseamd]

would be nice if they could get off global foundries

 

[OCGuy]

Does that switch up the socket?

 

[norseamd]

my guess is that carrizo is fm2+

 

[Vesku]

Staying on 28nm doesn't give them much to play with unless Excavator is going to be a decent amount larger than SteamrollerB in allocated die space.

 

[inf64]

Same socket as Kaveri. The author switched the words for Carrizo and EX but it doesn't matter that much^^.

Since 20nm is such a mess no wonder they are sticking with process that had Kaveri as "trial run". It should be solid enough by the time Carrizo is ready for market. Better hope that Carrizo is indeed Kaveri on steroids since it will be going against very tough competition.

 

[erunion]

Staying on 28nm doesn't give them much to play with unless Excavator is going to be a decent amount larger than SteamrollerB in allocated die space.

20nm was an impossibility. AMDs roadmap was for a new arch every year. Obviously AMD didn't plan on having 20nm ready one year after 28nm.

Plus, when is GFs 20nm going be ready? If EXC was tied to 20nm we wouldn't see it until 2016-2017.

 

[MisterMac]

Well that doesn't really bode well for Carrizo bringing much to the table.


Now that we're in the tinfoil hat zone - do you think Intel might have known about this and one of weighed in reasons that Broadwell atleast on desktop seems to have been "chosen" to be slipped?

Why bother rush desktop\mobile broadwell out - if Carrizo is going to be GF 28nm?

OEMs certainly can't seem to twist intel's arm at all.

 

[NTMBK]

Christ. Stuck on 28nm, stuck with dual channel DDR3. The only possible way that Carrizo could excite me was if it had a nice fat ESRAM/EDRAM cache to speed up the graphics.

 

[AtenRa]

Excavator will most probable use the new High Density Cell Libraries. If the claim about 30% area and power reduction is true then Carrizo APUs should be fine.

Also to note, that Excavator is suppose to bring the highest performance, Steamroller was going for more parallelism.

 

[bullzz]

when is this supposed to be released? will be interestng to see how these stack up against broadwell i3s

 

[el etro]

Will be good to see XV like Maxwell bring awesome efficiency on the same 28nm node. Bad will be see AMD still stuck on a so overpast process in 2015.

Also to note, that Excavator is suppose to bring the highest performance, Steamroller was going for more parallelism.

This was part on pre-Bulldozer era, no? Did the plans shifted these years?

 

[jpiniero]

Kinda offtopic, but I wonder when people are going to start getting in trouble/fired for posting stuff like this on LinkedIn.

 

[Abwx]

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...-production-is-moving-back-to-globalfoundries

Just leaks/rumors currently though, as indicated by the text in the article.

Thoses slides suggest that it could well be taped out at 28nm
for debugging purposes and then ported to 20nm once the process
is ready , this would allow devellopement of the APU without waiting
for GF to get its next node ready , this would save considerable
amount of time while the cost would be negligible overall, tests waffers
costs for very low quantities is about 200 000$/waffer at 28nm,
it would cost them 1200-2000$ per die , the cost of the mask is
millions but several iterations are needed anyway so if they can
get a functional one at 28nm it would be all benefit for the next node.

 

[norseamd]

this would benefit with ddr4 right

 

[Sweepr]

''Excavator is suppose to bring the highest performance''

Funny, it almost seems like I heard that before.
Just a month after we've discovered A10-7850K barely matches A10-6800K's CPU performance @ stock and here comes the ''next year's stuff will fix everything'' talk.
Outperforming 95W Kaveri with a 65W chip @ same 28nm node would already be quite a feat, yet it looks like some people (not talking about a specific user) expect it to demolish Kaveri CPU-wise and still pull out Maxwell-like perf/watt gains. Not impossible but looking back a few years, I'd keep my expectations in check.

 

[norseamd]

would like a 8 core excavator fx on the old 28 mm process at 125 or 140 watts. would like to see what it can do.

what is the difference between am3+ and fm2+. can a fm2+ support a fx processor.

thinking about all the talent they hired. after excavator could we see full cores come back and no more modules. a cpu with 8 full cores and better ipc and such over excavator would be interesting.

what will these guys make

raja koduri
jim keller
mark papermaster

 

[lakedude]

I know Intel is way ahead with 14nm right around the corner but I don't know if that matters as much as it did in days past, especially for desktops. Intel's 32nm chips are still pretty competitive and it seems like they overclocked better/easier. Going smaller just concentrates the heat into a smaller space.

AMD's bigger problem is architecture, not process size.

Now mobile is another matter...

 

[CHADBOGA]

I said so on this very board that XV was a 28nm part.

How was your post received at the time? :biggrin:

 

[bullzz]

@Abwx - I dont think so. why would they tape out on 28nm just for debugging when they can debug in an emulator which is easier, faster and cheaper
we dont know where GF is with their 20nm processes. I think it could be more for testing the process than the chip

 

[USER8000]

Carrizo SOC??

I said so on this very board that XV was a 28nm part.

It was known for months. There was a video with a roadmap on it which said it was 28NM.

 

[Arachnotronic]

How was your post received at the time? :biggrin:

Probably the same way anything negative about AMD is received.

 

[Phynaz]

Carrizo SOC??

It's an APU. FX is dead.

 

[norseamd]

It's an APU. FX is dead.

hope they bring fx back after excavator