20nm SoC's in 2015, GPU wait could be awhile!

[Wild Thing]

Quote:
The new method developed by SAIT and Sungkyunkwan University synthesizes large-area graphene into a single crystal on a semiconductor, maintaining its electric and mechanical properties. The new method repeatedly synthesizes single crystal graphene on the current semiconductor wafer scale.

Hopefully the first thing they do will be to shrink the name of that University...

 

[tviceman]

Why do we believe this, exactly?

Why can't they do both?

Because, as I said previously in this thread, 28nm SoC mobile chips were shipping 6-8 months before any 28nm GPU chips. Why would 20nm be any different, especially now that Apple is buying from TSMC and has waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more money than Nvidia and AMD combined to secure first wafers?

 

[tviceman]

It's a question worth asking. My gut feeling is that it's an assumption made by those who aren't technically fluent in the matter and it spreads across the internet like wild fire. Not that i'm technically fluent in all things related to node design, but i've seen similar claims made in the past which didn't necessarily turn out to be the case. I'm really curious about this as well. I don't see any reason to necessarily believe they can't do both; unless someone is an expert in the field nobody can really state that definitively, either.

I dunno. We'll see I guess.

It's probably not because "they can't," but probably more down to dollars. Nvidia wants high margins, AMD doesn't have an excess amount of cash on hand, and Apple is now a TSMC customer. Apple has the cash and has the need for way more volume than Nvidia and AMD combined. Also the same can be said for Qualcomm, who continues to be a TSMC customer.

Apple and then Qualcomm will get first dibs on all the initial, higher cost wafers while Nvidia and AMD will wait for availability to drive down wafer prices. As I said in my previous post, Qualcomm had 28nm SoC's on the market 6-8 months before the first 28nm GPU (Tahiti), probably for all these exact reasons.

 

[NTMBK]

We don't know, no one knows. My current bet is that it will stop somewhere around 3nm. What I know for sure, though, is that TSMC won't reach 3nm any time soon, or any other dedicated foundry. The costs will be astronomical.

Fortunately, transistor size isn't the only thing that matters for performance. Maybe we'll ever buy a processor with carbon nanotubes with clock speeds of 1THz.

The foundries aren't the only ones in trouble from the rising cost of node development. Intel's revenues have flatlined for ~3 years (despite the effective lack of competition in the x86 market), while their R&D costs continue to balloon. They can't fill their fabs and shelved a brand new mega-fab, which is a very real sign that they are going to struggle to maintain the volumes and scale required for 10/7nm. If they can't break into a new market in a significant way, soon, then they are in trouble. Because PCs aren't growing any more, and servers don't have the volumes they need.

 

[Techhog]

We really need graphene to become viable sooner rather than later...