@NostaSeronx , you mentioned also "Smart Phones", that means that Huawei wants to make mobile processors again?
Huawei via HiSilicon is already doing Kirin 710A. However, only the 710A is released and we are approaching the second year anniversary of it.
Expanding to HiSilicon rumors two chips are succeeding the 710A: One at the same market level and one at the market level above.
1. New SoC that is 710A's successor = Mid-end
2. New SoC above 710A's successor = High-end
Mid-end will probably be a refresh to 14SF++/12SF+ and the high-end SoC will probably be SMIC 7.
The rumors on architecture are extremely all over the place:
ARMv8 has been dropped or not. If it has been dropped the next SoCs are ARMv9 or RISC-V, if not it is still ARMv8.
On the RISC-V side, there is apparently something on them about licensing StarFive cores. Instead of developing their own 64-bit OoO RISC-V processor.
StarFive's RISC-V A75 competitor which is faster than A73 in 710A. }| 4.8 DMIPS/MHz-A73 to 6.6(12nm)/5.6(7nm) DMIPS/MHz-Dubhe
12nm TSMC "Dubhe" = 2 GHz <--> 7nm TSMC "Dubhe" = 3.5 GHz
Going through linkedin profiles it might be because they want to focus on finally implementing that Mobile GPU:
"We are looking for GPU Architects. The candidate will help define and model Huawei's first generation mobile GPU." <- From 2016, by the way. However, there are still people working as GPU architects: GPU/CPU/AI Director, first bit is all about the in-house GPU. Selecting Dubhe to focus on GPU might seem to be a viable explanation where the RISC-V processor went.
On IP:
14SF+ has paper specification support of DDR5-4800(2021-IP) and PCIe5.0(2021-IP). Which are likely to ported across through N+1(10SF/8SF)/N+2(7). 2022 IP hasn't been announced by home IP. Non-SMIC aka external IP is PCIe 4.0 and LPDDR5(DDR5/LPDDR4/DDR4) silicon proven though down to SMIC 7.
Allows Zhaoxin to hit all the points:
- 7nm process
- New core
- DDR5
- PCIe 4.0(at min) and PCIe 5.0(at max)
Which follows Zhaoxin's general theme:
ZX-A = TSMC 40nm
ZX-B = HLMC 40nm
ZX-C = TSMC 28nm
ZX-D = HLMC 28nm
ZX-E = TSMC 16nm
(2020 - 14nm HLMC/SMIC SoC -- Skipped)
(2021 - 7nm TSMC SoC -- Skipped)
ZX-F = SMIC 7nm
Looking through Zhaoxin's slides that weren't posted here but at 3d-center.
1.25x IPC increase + 1.38x Frequency increase = ZX-F Single-threaded and 2x cores = ZX-F Multithreaded.
16-core @ ~4.1 GHz = ZX-F
After reading though various EYE-BLEEDING articles and hunting down everything:
Q4 2019 = 14SF
Q4 2020* = 10SF
Q4 2021* = 7SF(internal name)/7(outside name)
*New Q2 2022 facility will volume ramp these nodes.
14nm HPC -> 10nm HPC == Big fixed mm2
12nm Value-orientated -> 8nm Value-orientated == Small fixed mm2
14nm Mobile/SoC -> 7nm Mobile/SoC == Shrinked mm2 <-- Zhaoxin