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GLOBALFOUNDRIES Introduces New 12nm FinFET Technology for High-Performance Applications

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Phynaz said:
At the announcement Sanjay Jha said risk prduction of 12nm FinFET begins in the first half of 2018. Rick Merritt said "This makes sense because 12FinFET is a minor tweak of 14 and is needed to give current volume 14 users like AMD a 2018-2019 refresh."

I'm doubtful of Digitimes reporting. Seems like they are trying to get wccf's audience lately.
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With what is essentially a half node, risk production could very well be good enough for initial volume. The "risk" is not high given it's basically 14nmLPP on steroids.

And for the same reason, the move to volume production can happen much faster than a process normally would.
 
If risk production begins in 2018, AMD isn't launching product in February. Maybe announcing product, but if they are launching product in February it would have to be in production now.
 
I think we need more info on 12LP before we can start speculating on likely product launch dates based off of it. If AMD is projecting a risk production schedule that they will participate in, then the process is up and running and sufficiently developed so that they can have confidence that they have a clear pathway.
 
Honestly things aren't clear enough on 12nm in terms of production and risk production. Some sources say production, others say risk production, and even GloFo's own slides contradict each other.
 
Ajay said:
I think we need more info on 12LP before we can start speculating on likely product launch dates based off of it. If AMD is projecting a risk production schedule that they will participate in, then the process is up and running and sufficiently developed so that they can have confidence that they have a clear pathway.
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Sanjay Jha is Global Foundries' CEO. If he said risk production is in 2018, then it's not going to be in 2017.
 
GTC2017-12LP-12nm-FinFET.png
 
Phynaz said:
If risk production begins in 2018, AMD isn't launching product in February. Maybe announcing product, but if they are launching product in February it would have to be in production now.
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The full DigiTimes article will be published soon, hopefully we get more details soon.
 
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Phynaz said:
Sanjay Jha is Global Foundries' CEO. If he said risk production is in 2018, then it's not going to be in 2017.
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I agree with you, I think that much is clear. A lot of stuff is hazy - which is the problem with leaks. Is there link for Jha's comments?
 
I hope in the future posters will give proper attribution to the slides/comments that are posted from 3rd party sources.
It's required under fair use for copyrighted materials and adds needed context to technical commentary and debate.
 
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Arachnotronic said:
DIGITIMES reporting that AMD is going to launch Pinnacle Ridge in February 2018. Impressive schedule.
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Arachnotronic said:
The full digitimes article will be published soon, hopefully we get more details soon.
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How did you hear about it before digitimes article got published ? Feb 2018 looks very unlikely if risk production is Q1 2018. I would expect more like May-June 2018 for Pinnacle Ridge at the earliest.

btw I got confirmation that 9T library is offered at 12LP. I had some questions about 9T library availability at 12LP as anandtech mentioned 7.5T at 12LP vs 9T at 14LPP in their article . Daniel Nenni of semiwiki got confirmation from GF.

Daniel
I have a question. GF 12LP seems to bring a 15% area reduction and >10% perf gain at same power over 14LPP. The area reduction comes from the use of a 7.5T library instead of 9T at 14LPP for high performance applications. So my question is does GF 12LP provide a 9T library option for the highest possible performance or is it 7.5T only for high performance and if there is a 9T option are there any more gains (even if minor) which can be had from using that library.

I don't know the answer to this. Let me check with GF and others. My guess is that they have a 9T library for high performance designs. It was also my understanding that this was an optical shrink and not just a library change.

Thanks. Much Appreciated.

"Yes our 9T library is also available in 12LP. The performance option is also available for use with any of our libraries in 12LP."
 
maddie said:
Isn't this a big reduction?

14LPP > 12FDX = 47% power at ISO performance.
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We're not talking about 12FDX, but rather about 12LP.
12FDX won't be available for a while. In fact 7LP will be available by the time 12FDX will be available.

12LP offers 15% density improvement and 10% perf at ISO power/20% power at ISO perf.
 
CatMerc said:
We're not talking about 12FDX, but rather about 12LP.
12FDX won't be available for a while. In fact 7LP will be available by the time 12FDX will be available.

12LP offers 15% density improvement and 10% perf at ISO power/20% power at ISO perf.
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OK thanks.
 
CatMerc said:
a63ce692-baf6-4066-bb0f-35a3596c766f.jpg

Production start in 1Q18.
What's unusual is that usually when a company says "H1", that means they're uncommited to a particular quarter. Here we get a commitment to start production in 1Q18. And it doesn't say risk production either.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/industry/110324-amd-will-transition-ryzen-vega-glofo-12nm-lp-next-year/

From Hexus
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From what I've seen, this just means AMD is counting the 'risk production' period for 12LP as production. They will probably start stockpiling CPUs as soon as they start hitting the desired Fmax on Pinnacle Ridge (plus die salvaging chips will bad cores). AMD also desperately needs this node to be able to compete will Volta on their Vega platform, but I'm guessing they'll need better maturity for a large Vega die.
 
Ajay said:
From what I've seen, this just means AMD is counting the 'risk production' period for 12LP as production. They will probably start stockpiling CPUs as soon as they start hitting the desired Fmax on Pinnacle Ridge (plus die salvaging chips will bad cores). AMD also desperately needs this node to be able to compete will Volta on their Vega platform, but I'm guessing they'll need better maturity for a large Vega die.
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That's what I guessed. I would not be surprised to see a limited supply launch in February to stave off Coffee Lake sales as soon as possible.
Either that or their manufacturing bandwidth for 12nm is huge. Which is possible considering it's replacing 14nm.
 
CatMerc said:
We're not talking about 12FDX, but rather about 12LP.
12FDX won't be available for a while. In fact 7LP will be available by the time 12FDX will be available.

12LP offers 15% density improvement and 10% perf at ISO power/20% power at ISO perf.
Click to expand...

12FDX is a full node shrink of 22nm FD-SOI which isn't in production yet. It's years away.
 
Phynaz said:
12FDX is a full node shrink of 22nm FD-SOI which isn't in production yet. It's years away.
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Aye, everything about it looks enticing aside from timelines. Had it been available in conjunction with 7nm, I'd bet on at least some AMD products being made on it.
 
CatMerc said:
That's what I guessed. I would not be surprised to see a limited supply launch in February to stave off Coffee Lake sales as soon as possible.
Either that or their manufacturing bandwidth for 12nm is huge. Which is possible considering it's replacing 14nm.
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I still don't see how it adds up. Let's say GloFo makes it to risk production in January. AMD gets first silicon back on January 2nd - the very first wafer off the line. How do you qualify that silicon, place a wafer order, get the wafers manufactured, cut, tested, packaged and shipped in 30 - 60 days.
 
Phynaz said:
I still don't see how it adds up. Let's say GloFo makes it to risk production in January. AMD gets first silicon back on January 2nd - the very first wafer off the line. How do you qualify that silicon, place a wafer order, get the wafers manufactured, cut, tested, packaged and shipped in 30 - 60 days.
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I'm guessing as part of so tightly cooperating with GloFo, they get to stages in manufacturing earlier. As in they're already manufacturing their first wafers or going to soon. H1 risk production for other foundry partners. Maybe AMD is even taking the entire manufacturing volume available, meaning others have to wait to start.
 
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