Friday, May 29th 2020
TSMC 5 nm+ Node Manufacturing Goes High-Volume in Q4, AMD one of the Major Customers
TSMC is working hard to bring the best silicon out there, with the company supplying many of the companies like NVIDIA, AMD, Huawei, and Apple - all customers who demand the latest and greatest when it comes to the silicon technology. According to sources close to DigiTimes, TSMC is expected to kick-off volume production of its next-generation 5 nm+ manufacturing node, which is an enhancement of the 5 nm node, as soon as Q4 of this year hits.
Update May 29th: The DigiTimes report indicates that TSMC is preparing the 5 nm+ node for AMD Ryzen 4000 "Vermeer" series of CPUs. Originally planned for using the 7 nm+ node, the CPUs are supposedly ported to a smaller node, providing better transistor performance and lower power consumption. The Ryzen 4000 series of desktop processors were planned for launching later this year, however, being that the new information provided by DigiTimes suggests 5 nm+ node could be used, we can expect to see Zen 3 based processors sometime in early 2021.
Despite the current world pandemic happening, TSMC is relentless and seems like it can not be stopped. Sources at DigiTimes have confirmed that the company will do High-Volume Manufacturing of the chips in Q4, meaning that we can expect first chips on the 5 nm+ node somewhere in the beginning of 2021. This is very good news as it reassures us that TSMC is untouched by the happenings in the world and that they will manage to deliver just fine.
Sources:
DigiTimes, @chiakokhua (Twitter)
Update May 29th: The DigiTimes report indicates that TSMC is preparing the 5 nm+ node for AMD Ryzen 4000 "Vermeer" series of CPUs. Originally planned for using the 7 nm+ node, the CPUs are supposedly ported to a smaller node, providing better transistor performance and lower power consumption. The Ryzen 4000 series of desktop processors were planned for launching later this year, however, being that the new information provided by DigiTimes suggests 5 nm+ node could be used, we can expect to see Zen 3 based processors sometime in early 2021.
40 Comments on TSMC 5 nm+ Node Manufacturing Goes High-Volume in Q4, AMD one of the Major Customers
XT refresh makes more sense now, as these new chips will launch probably very late in the year.
Intel is no threat right now..
Besides the design rules of N7 are only compatible with N7P and later on N6.
So they will have to redesign everything from the ground up for it to work with N5.
N7 risk production 2017, NAvi 2019, see - 2 years.
N6 risk 2020, CPUs, GPUs in 2022 18% +density, yeah, not much better, and limited to 420mm2, N7P until 2022.
N5 risk 2019, earliest 2021.
5nm is roughly double the density of 7nm because the number is squared. 5nm is a 25nm2 transistor and 7nm is a 49nm2 transistor... well, 5nm "feature", not the whole transistor but the doubling ratio still applies.
"No threat", south eastern part of my body.
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X PassMark Score: 39,400
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X PassMark Score: 32,800
Intel Core i9-10900K PassMark Score: 23,400
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X PassMark Score: 81,000
Intel Core i9-10980XE PassMark Score: 35,000
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti ~50% faster than AMD Radeon VII
On the other side, Intel is still struggling with whatever plan they have with 10nm, and a few years ago, they were leading the bleeding edge leadership, the best example of monopoly and lack of competition. Thankfully AMD is utilizing that technology to innovate now , x86 improvements to shut those SPEC ARM talk. AMD's Zen4 will probably be Q4 2021 on 5nm+ I guess, Zen 3 will be on N7P (EUV N7), RDNA2 will be on the same N7P I guess along with Nvidia Ampere, which is also sourced to Samsung 8nm EUV node.
Wishful thinking...
If this 5nm rumor is true, it's a smart move by AMD, as what thry need to achieve is "top of mind awareness" in the consumer and the perception of being better, as if this is achieved, even if Intel answers back, it won't be enough to break AMD's hold on consumers. Just consider the mid to late 2000s, when AMD offered not only obviously better performing cards, but at better prices..... And what happened? Nvidia STILL sold more cards despite having the weaker product all due to consumer perception... And that's what AMD needs to achieve, they need 10 years of dominance, nor just a few years, so that even if Intel offers a better product eventually, it won't matter that much. Intel would have to offer success after success for several years to gain confidence back, which is a lot more difficult that a one time performance jump. Just look at Ryzen, it took the third release (Zen2) for the general consumer to finally relent.
See if AMD focuses on x86, then who knows, in five years they may have 50% of the OEM market and then they could take a page out of Intel and Nvidia's playbook and do something like offer OEMs a deep discount on AMD CPUs ONLY IF they bundle them with one of our discrete GPUs. Then they can leverage their strengths in x86 to put pressure on Nvidia from two sides, on the OEM front, and in competing on the DIY PC Videocard front.
2080Ti is nearly 3 times bigger.
Randomly picking products is one of the most nonsensical ways to compare performance.
The 1080ti is only 267mm2 and is also 5-10% faster then radeon VII.This part, right here, is incredibly relevant when it comes to AMD. The athlon 64 era was great for AMD, but AMD made the mistake of getting distracted by ATi and was goofing around with phenom and L3 caches.
The core 2 caught AMD totally off guard, and the legitimate core 2 killer didnt arrive arguably until 2009 with the phenom II line, as the phenom I line just couldnt clock high enough to challenge intel.
The worst thing AMD could do right now is make this mistake again.
Radeon VII is a full process shrink to N7, while RTX 2080 Ti when equalised/normalised for the process is no more than 377 mm2.No, it is not..
Of course it's a rumor atm so take it with a dead sea full of salt :ohwell:
Yeah, I for one am taking it with more salt than the Pacific Ocean.
Intel could release something ground breaking but more likely and I do expect that they will not.
Wait, what do you mean by this? Do you hint that uncle and niece could arrange it, so that AMD effectively doesn't compete, because of the family conflict of interest ?
this is 2 years ahead of schedule wtf... wow im def buying a 4800x or 4900x now... and a msi x570 tomahawki agree with this 100% they could really come out swinging a big punch to nvidia with 5nm+ big navi
This also make good sense as Zen 2 XT models might be the 7 NM+ process then.
Intel still being on 14 NM for desktop. It can only end like this AMD (Green smiley) vs. intel: :nutkick:
And i have been a intel supporter already before X58 came out, but i must say at the rate AMD moving on now (CPU´s before Zen 2, dit not impress me. But Zen 2 has and now with possible 5 NM Ryzen 4000, that is really impressive) and intel loves to stick to there 14 NM. I am beginning to be convince that AMD now are getting ahead of intel the coming years.