Slashdot Mirror
AMD Makes 10-Nanometer Transistor
Yorrike writes: "Reuters is reporting that AMD are about to reveal their smallest double-gate transistor to date. From the article: 'The gate of the transistor, across which electrical current flows to turn the switch on, measures 10 nanometers, or 10 billionths of a meter.' The article goes on to suggest that this may lead to a 1 billion transistor chip."
i wonder how many houses you could heat with ine of these?
That's true. I'd take an AMD at a slower clock rate anyday. But when consumers learn the real speed they're going, they don't like it. I've had a bunch of people buy new AMD systems, and when I tell them what speed they're actually running at, they get skeptical and don't want to buy from AMD again, even after I explain. Consumers don't like being lied to, and for the most part, aren't as dumb as some people make them out to be.
We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist.
Great, but AMD needs to get their .13 micron process stable first.
-----------------------
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
1) It's a basic idea in engineering that when you are dealing with something abstract (and these are so small that they qualify), then you have to relate it to something familiar.
2) (To quote from Billy Madison)
what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It seems the real question of relevance rests in the new technology they're using to build these devices. The FinFETs have a nice writeup here. They can be built just with the defects from plateaus in normal photo-lithographic processes, thus using the nicely developed techniques usually limited to 125 nm structures to build 10 nm structures. This still means the overall transistor size will be on the order of a a few hundred nm, to deal with contacts, etc, but it is a sight better than standard 0.13 micron transistors, and much easier to use in mass production than e-beam lithography. (Just think about those old vector displays -- that's ebeam lithography for you). Seems like a fine idea for nanoscale structure building, and not one of these technologies may have impacts far beyond just standard IC circuit technology; with 10 nm devices, all sorts of quantum coherent processes become accessible, if you work for them.
The correct verb choice has nothing to do with how many people work at AMD. "AMD" is a single entity, and as such should be used singular forms of a verb. Subjects such as "Engineers at AMD" or "Scientists at AMD" would require a plural form.
So in American English at least, the original Anonymous Coward is correct... though frankly I thought that it was just a mistake, not a Britishism.
Regardless of whether one considers AMD plural or singular, there's an inconsistency. The headline says "AMD Makes..." and the body of the article says "AMD are".
PS. it's singular, and the headline is correct. But I hates the nit-pickers.
AMD's never really played the bandwidth game. The issue with Pentium IV's is that the high gigahertz readings they have are quite misleading. For one, they can do far less work during each cycle. They may have more cycles, but the effect is lessened in that the AMDs can do far much more work per individual cycle. Second, the cache is much worse in the Pentium IV's. They have inclusive caches, which because of their design cause the chip to have to go to much-slower memory more often than the exclusive cache designs of the AMD Athlon processors.
Plus, you've got to remember that these "fast" Pentium IV's are months away from even being introduced on paper. By that time the comparably-performing Hammers should be out, running both 32 and 64-bit applications and from what I hear quite fast as well. Basically, the difference is this: Intel caters to the average Joe who thinks bigger numbers are better, while AMD takes much more care to ensure that their chips run at a fast, reliable speed that rivals that of higher-rated Pentium IV's.
Want Slashdot headlines on your site? Try SlashHead