Mar

31

AMD rolls out a slew of new products

Filed Under GPU and Gaming, Microprocessor, Video Gallery | Leave a Comment

In the last one week, AMD has rolled out a slew of new products. First, it announced today the launch of 3D professional graphics accelerator card, ATI FireGL™ V7700. The new GPU card is capable of creating photorealistic visualizations of real-world objects and environments on stereoscopic display. It is also the first commercially available 3D workstation card to support 3D on DisplayPort - the latest digital display interface standard by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) (Ref). Second, AMD announced last week the shipment of 65nm Phenom triple-core (X3) and quad-core (X4) processors for desktop PCs. When paired with AMD’s recently unveiled 780 series chipset, both Phenom X3 and X4 processors will deliver significant enhancements in gaming and high-definition experiences for mainstream PC customers, including full HD support for VC-1, MPEG-2 and H.264 formats (Ref). On the other hand, the AMD’s Phenom X4 9100e quad-core processors are the world’s first and most energy efficient 65W desktop quad-core processor. Lastly, AMD also announced last week the immediate availability of four new high-performance AMD Phenom™ X4 processors for the high-performance HD gaming and video users. The Phenom quad-core processor products include 9850 (2.5G, 125W), 9750 (2.4G, 125W), 9750 (2.4G, 95W), 9650 (2.3G, 95W), 9550 (2.2G, 95W), 9100e (1.8G, 65W). The Phenom triple-core processor products include 8600 (2.3G, 95W) and 8400 (2.1G, 95W).

Earlier in the month, AMD has also demonstrated its first 45nm native quad-core processors (see picture) at CeBIT in Germany. It looks like AMD is all set to fight with Intel head-on.

 

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Mar

26

TSMC readies 40nm technology for production

Filed Under Foundry, Video Gallery | 1 Comment

The world’s largest contract chipmaker has announced the readiness of its 40 nm manufacturing process technology for both a general purpose and low-power applications. TSMC plans to offer low-power 40nm technology for wireless and portable devices, and general-purpose 40nm technology for CPUs, GPUs, FPGA and other high-performance consumer devices. The company already has orders for such chips from customers. Production is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2008. (Ref).

TSMC claims that the its 40nm technology has the smallest footprint in the industry with 2.35× higher raw gate density and a SRAM cell size of 0.242 µm2. In addition, the 40nm technology offers significant saving in power as compared to its 45nm technology. The 40 nm process uses a combination of 193 nm immersion photolithography and ELK (Extreme Low-k) material. The 40G and LP processes will initially run in TSMCs Fab 12 and will be transferred to Fab 14 as demand ramps (Ref).

EDN Executive Editor Ron Wilson pointed out an interesting observation that the gap between TSMC 45nm and 40nm is surprisingly short, just 2Q difference (Ref). TSMC 45nm technology was ready in Sep 2007, and its 40nm technology is now ready in Mar 2008. Ron suggested that this probably was TSMC’s strategy to engage the fabless customers, such as Qualcomm and Altera, to 45nm as early as possible despite the 45nm might not be quite ready last year. The real production-ready process is actually the 40nm technology. The following video showed TSMC presentation to Altera on 45nm few months ago.

 

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