Monday, June 25th 2018
Intel Shelves Z390 Express As We Knew It, Could Re-brand Z370 as Z390
Intel is rumored to have shelved the iteration of its upcoming Z390 Express chipset as earlier publicized, the one which had certain new hardware features. It could now re-brand the existing Z370 Express as Z390 Express and probably bolster its reference design with heftier CPU VRM specifications, to cope better with its upcoming 8-core LGA1151 processors. The Z370 Express is similar in feature-set to the brink of being identical to its predecessor, the Z270 Express. This move could impact certain new hardware features that were on the anvil, such as significantly more USB 3.1 gen 2/gen1 ports directly from the PCH, integrated WiFi MAC, and Intel SmartSound technology, which borrowed certain concepts from edge-computing to implement native speech-to-text conversion directly on the chipset, for improved voice control latency and reduced CPU overhead.
The reasons behind this move could be a combination of last-minute cost-benefit analyses by Intel's bean-counters, and having to mass-produce Z390 Express on the busier-than-expected 14 nm silicon fabrication node, as opposed to current 300-series chipsets being built on the 22 nm node that's nearing the end of its life-cycle. Intel probably needed the switch to 14 nm for the significant increases in transistor-counts arising from the additional USB controllers, the WiFi MAC, and the SmartSound logic. Intel probably doesn't have the vacant 14 nm node capacity needed to mass-produce the Z390 yet, as its transition to future processes such as 10 nm and 7 nm are still saddled with setbacks and delays; and redesigning the Z390 (as we knew it) on 22 nm may have emerged unfeasible (i.e. the chip may have ended up too big and/or too hot). The Z390 Express chipset block-diagram, which we published in our older article has been quietly removed from Intel's website. It's also rumored that this move could force AMD to rethink its plans to launch its Z490 socket AM4 chipset.
Source:
Benchlife.info
The reasons behind this move could be a combination of last-minute cost-benefit analyses by Intel's bean-counters, and having to mass-produce Z390 Express on the busier-than-expected 14 nm silicon fabrication node, as opposed to current 300-series chipsets being built on the 22 nm node that's nearing the end of its life-cycle. Intel probably needed the switch to 14 nm for the significant increases in transistor-counts arising from the additional USB controllers, the WiFi MAC, and the SmartSound logic. Intel probably doesn't have the vacant 14 nm node capacity needed to mass-produce the Z390 yet, as its transition to future processes such as 10 nm and 7 nm are still saddled with setbacks and delays; and redesigning the Z390 (as we knew it) on 22 nm may have emerged unfeasible (i.e. the chip may have ended up too big and/or too hot). The Z390 Express chipset block-diagram, which we published in our older article has been quietly removed from Intel's website. It's also rumored that this move could force AMD to rethink its plans to launch its Z490 socket AM4 chipset.
46 Comments on Intel Shelves Z390 Express As We Knew It, Could Re-brand Z370 as Z390
14 samsung and 16nm by tsmc, are very comparable in size and power usage.
22nm and 14nm both by intel are not the same. 22x22/14x14 or the latter representing 40% of the original size. or 60% less power.
Still, as some have already touched upon, the production node is just a small piece of the picture. As everyone should know by this point, node scale names are just pure marketing. It only denotes the smallest "design feature", not the actual density of a specific design. There are also numerous other factors which impacts the tapeout of a design, and of course yields and the voltage required. So be careful about estimating the success of various nodes before some of then are even in volume production.
Intel 10nm = TSMC/GloFlo 7nm
Intel 7nm = TSMC/GloFlo 5nm
TSMC/GloFlo always market their processes as more cutting edge than they actually are. So despite surface level nm advantage individual component (pitch) sizes are actually bigger than Intel's. That is why Intel had some much trouble with 14nm at the beginning and even more trouble with 10nm now.
So if TSMC/GloFlo gets 10nm out next year in mass they would have equaled Intel's 14nm down to pitch size.
However Intel superior pitch size does not mean squat if they can't get it into production in mass.
Currently it is expected that Intel's 10nm will enter mass production in 2H 2019. By that time TSMC/GloFlo will have 7nm in production meaning they would have introduced equal pitch size before intel. Even if Intel somehow gets their 7nm fasttracked to 2020/2021 TSMC/GloFlo will have 5nm by then and still atleast equal if not better.
CPU building industry isn't even the only industry where consultants exist. Hell, I'd be a consultant for software businesses. Except nobody cares for quality and thinks foregoing best practices and going for quantity is how it's done.