SoCs

During the Intel keynote hosted by CEO Pat Gelsinger, he gave the world a glimpse into the Intel Client roadmap until 2026. Meteor Lake launched last year on that roadmap, and Lunar Lake, which we dived into yesterday as Intel disclosed technical details about the upcoming platform. Pat also presented a wafer on stage, Panther Lake, and he gave some additional information about Intel's forthcoming Panther Lake platform, which is expected in 2025. We covered Intel's initial announcement about the Panther Lake platform last year. It is set to be Intel's first client platform using its Intel 18A node. Aside from once again affirming that things are on track for a 2026 launch, Pat Gelsinger, Intel's CEO, also confirmed that they will be powering on...

TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm

One of the side announcements made during TSMC’s Technology Symposium was that it already has customers on hand with product development progressing for its future 3nm process node technology...

2 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/27/2020

Where are my GAA-FETs? TSMC to Stay with FinFET for 3nm

As we passed that 22nm to 16nm barrier, almost all the major semiconductor fabrication companies on the leading edge transitioned from planar transistors to FinFET transistors. The benefits of...

37 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/26/2020

‘Better Yield on 5nm than 7nm’: TSMC Update on Defect Rates for N5

One of the key metrics on how well a semiconductor process is developing is looking at its quantitative chip yield – or rather, its defect density. A manufacturing process...

107 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/25/2020

342 Transistors for Every Person In the World: Cerebras 2nd Gen Wafer Scale Engine Teased

One of the highlights of Hot Chips from 2019 was the startup Cerebras showcasing its product – a large ‘wafer-scale’ AI chip that was literally the size of a...

32 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/18/2020

Intel’s 11th Gen Core Tiger Lake SoC Detailed: SuperFin, Willow Cove and Xe-LP

At the start of the year, Intel ‘foolishly’ handed me a wafer of its next generation Tiger Lake processors, as the moment it came into my hands I attempted...

71 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/13/2020

NUVIA Phoenix Targets +40-50% ST Performance Over Zen 2 for Only 33% the Power

In November 2019, the company NUVIA broke out of stealth mode. Founded by former senior Apple and Google processor architects, John Bruno, Manu Gulati and Gerard Williams III, the...

50 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/11/2020

Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 865+: Breaking the 3GHz Threshold

Today Qualcomm is announcing an update to its extremely successful Snapdragon 865 SoC: the new Snapdragon 865+. The Snapdragon 865 had already seen tremendous success with over 140 different...

88 by Andrei Frumusanu on 7/8/2020

HPC Systems Special Offer: Two A64FX Nodes in a 2U for $40k

It was recently announced that the Fugaku supercomputer, located at Riken in Japan, has scored the #1 position on the TOP500 supercomputer list, as well as #1 positions in...

38 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/26/2020

AMD Succeeds in its 25x20 Goal: Renoir Crosses the Line in 2020

One of the stories bubbling away in the background of the industry is the AMD self-imposed ‘25x20’ goal. Starting with performance in 2014, AMD committed to itself, to customers...

83 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/25/2020

The Next Phase: Apple Lays Out Plans To Transition Macs from x86 to Apple SoCs

After many months of rumors and speculation, Apple confirmed this morning during their annual WWDC keynote that the company intends to transition away from using x86 processors at the...

241 by Ryan Smith on 6/22/2020

Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 690: 5G & A77 In The Mid-Range

Today Qualcomm is extending its 5G SoC portfolio down to the Snapdragon 600-series, introducing the new Snapdragon 690 platform and chip. The new design is a more significant upgrade...

24 by Andrei Frumusanu on 6/16/2020

Arm Announces Ethos-N78 NPU: Bigger And More Efficient

Yesterday Arm released the new Cortex-A78, Cortex-X1 CPUs and the new Mali-G78 GPU. Alongside the new “key” IPs from the company, we also saw the reveal of the newest...

34 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/27/2020

Arm's New Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1 Microarchitectures: An Efficiency and Performance Divergence

2019 was a great year for Arm. On the mobile side of things one could say it was business as usual, as the company continued to see successes with...

192 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/26/2020

Arm Announces The Mali-G78 GPU: Evolution to 24 Cores

Today as part of Arm’s 2020 TechDay announcements, alongside the release of the brand-new Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1 CPUs, Arm is also revealing its brand-new Mali-G78 and Mali-G68 GPU...

36 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/26/2020

MediaTek Announces Dimensity 820 Mid-Range SoC With More Performance

Today MediaTek is announcing a refresh of the Dimensity 800 mid-range SoC – a new 5G chipset that had only been announced earlier this year at CES. The newer...

9 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/18/2020

Nvidia Announces New Drive Platforms With Orin and Ampere

Nvidia’s Orin SoC chipset had been on Nvidia’s roadmaps for over 2 years now, and last December we got the first new details of the new automotive oriented silicon...

37 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/14/2020

Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 768G: Higher-bin 765 up to 2.8GHz

Today alongside with the launch of the Xiaomi Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition, Qualcomm is announcing the new Snapdragon 768G SoC which powers the device. The new SoC is...

34 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/11/2020

MediaTek Announces Dimensity 1000+ SoC

Today MediaTek announced a follow-up in its SoC line-up with the new Dimensity 1000+. This seems to be a binned or revisioned variant of the Dimensity 1000 announced last...

35 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/7/2020

Apple’s A12Z Processor Confirmed to Reuse A12X Silicon

Last month Apple introduced its latest generation of iPad Pro tablets, and much to the surprise of many, the new iDevices didn’t come with a high-end variant of Apple’s...

57 by Ryan Smith on 4/13/2020

Mobile Benchmark Cheating: When a SoC Vendor Provides It As A Service

Mobile benchmark cheating has a long story that goes far back for the industry (well – at least in smartphone industry years), and has also been a controversial coverage...

111 by Andrei Frumusanu on 4/8/2020

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