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> Process is nearly everything in performance/watt. > TSMC 5nm is quite a bit better than Samsung 5nm. These two statements conflict.

dragontamer 5y ago
> These two statements conflict. TSMC 5nm is not the same process as Samsung 5nm though? All the processes are the company's secret sauce. They aren't sharing the details. Ultimately, Samsung comes out and says "5nm technology", but that doesn't mean its necessarily competitive with TSMC 5nm. Indeed, Intel 10nm is somewhat competitive against TSMC 7nm. The specific "nm" is largely a marketing thing at this point... and Intel is going through a rebranding effort. (Don't get me wrong: Intel is still far behind because it tripped up in 2016. But the Intel 14nm process was the best-in-the-world at that timeframe)
- codedokode 5y ago
  You can compare transistor count per mm^2 instead of nanometers.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    But you compare power-efficiency by how efficient each transistor is. TSMC N5p is 10% more efficient and 5% higher clocks than TSMC N5. The same 5nm __BY THE SAME COMPANY__ can change 15.5% in just a year, as manufacturing issues are figured out. Making every transistor 10% less power and 5% more GHz across the entire chip, while keeping the same size, is a huge bonus that cannot be ignored. I don't know what magic these chip engineers are doing, but they're surely spending some supercomputer on brute forcing all sorts of shapes/sizes of transistors to find the best density/power/speed tradeoffs per transistor. This is part of the reason why Intel stuck with 14nm for so long. 14nm+++++++ kept increasing clock speeds, yields, and power efficiency (but not density), so it never really was "worth it" for Intel to switch to 10nm (which Intel had some customer silicon tapped out for years, but only at low clock speeds IIRC). It isn't until recently that Intel seems to have figured out the clock speed issue and has begun offering mainstream chips at 10nm.

dragontamer 5y ago

> These two statements conflict. TSMC 5nm is not the same process as Samsung 5nm though? All the processes are the company's secret sauce. They aren't sharing the details. Ultimately, Samsung comes out and says "5nm technology", but that doesn't mean its necessarily competitive with TSMC 5nm. Indeed, Intel 10nm is somewhat competitive against TSMC 7nm. The specific "nm" is largely a marketing thing at this point... and Intel is going through a rebranding effort. (Don't get me wrong: Intel is still far behind because it tripped up in 2016. But the Intel 14nm process was the best-in-the-world at that timeframe)

codedokode 5y ago
You can compare transistor count per mm^2 instead of nanometers.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  But you compare power-efficiency by how efficient each transistor is. TSMC N5p is 10% more efficient and 5% higher clocks than TSMC N5. The same 5nm __BY THE SAME COMPANY__ can change 15.5% in just a year, as manufacturing issues are figured out. Making every transistor 10% less power and 5% more GHz across the entire chip, while keeping the same size, is a huge bonus that cannot be ignored. I don't know what magic these chip engineers are doing, but they're surely spending some supercomputer on brute forcing all sorts of shapes/sizes of transistors to find the best density/power/speed tradeoffs per transistor. This is part of the reason why Intel stuck with 14nm for so long. 14nm+++++++ kept increasing clock speeds, yields, and power efficiency (but not density), so it never really was "worth it" for Intel to switch to 10nm (which Intel had some customer silicon tapped out for years, but only at low clock speeds IIRC). It isn't until recently that Intel seems to have figured out the clock speed issue and has begun offering mainstream chips at 10nm.