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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."
But how many of these transistors would fit on a single human hair?
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Dr. Evil: "And I will design a chip with transistors... 1 MILLION transistors!"
#2: "Uh, Dr. Evil, we've already designed a chip with 1 million transistors, quite a few years ago in fact."
Dr. Evil: "How many is a lot then?"
#2: "1 billion would be very impressive. We're working on that right now."
Dr. Evil: "Alright then... 1 BILLION transistors."
The gate of the transistor, across which electrical current flows to turn the switch on...
You mean there's another type of transistor?
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This is the same transistor that IBM was talking about. They are sharing (or stealing) this technology. Electron microscope pictures are of the same transistor.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
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.
What, where's not going to benchmark on Mhz cycles anymore?
I can already picture this:
"Buy Intel's new Pentra Plus 2004, the only processor with a billion transistors!!!" (yay, men in blue dance yadda yadda)
"Piter, too, is dead."
The point of making it smaller is so there's less current flow, and thus less heat. Granted, they'll pack more in, so the overall effect will probably be more heat generation, but per transistor, smaller ones do generate less heat.
Faster invalidation of digital media than you ever thought possible!
GMFTatsujin
Great, but AMD needs to get their .13 micron process stable first.
-----------------------
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
Yes AMD is "a" company made up of "many" people.
So what it boils down to is do you define the company as an entity or the sum of it's people.
Sorry, I'm having my pendanticivitis diagnosed tomorrow!
Just think about all the DRM they can pack into that baby!
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
The earlier press release talked, in a half assed way, about the performance benefits. This one talks, in a half assed way, about the reduced size.
Of course, this happens because whoever digests these things for us unwashed masses doesn't understand what the hell they're talking about.
And the gate length has much more to do with the performance, not the transistor density, as the transistor density is dominated by the via sizes and interconnect sizes.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
.... this would be the "wee" size. "Not so wee" and "friggin' huge!" are now obsolete.
"So small that they power the palm pilot used by the angel dancing on the head of a pin?"
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
...and with the new DRM capabilities, it'll be able to do so much less.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
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
I wasn't trying to be funny. They DO run all over!
I think you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.
The HP-PA8800 is already a thrid of the way there with over 300 million transistors. For more info see here . At the rate of Moore's Law we will be to a billion transistors on the biggest chips in less than 3 years.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Well, they have to announce it to enhance shareholder's value.
+ they need to lay the foundation for the hype of the future.
You can't take the sky from me...
Once the RIAA gets news of this I'm sure they'll find some hack think-tank that will make the proclamation that according to their data, there is a direct correlation over time between "Transistors Per CPU" and "Music Piracy". Lawyer parties will follow.
(When I started typing this, I was making a joke. But now that I've read it back a few times, this looks more probable than improbable.)
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
triple gate, trinary logic gates, not just 1 or 0, on or of, but 0, 1 and somethethign else (.5? 2? off, low, high?), this gives us a 3rd posibility which means less cycles needed which means its faster
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Where on earth am I going to find a motherboard for a CMOS processor?
First CMOS, then Silicon, then Gallium (what ever happened GaAs anyway?), then Coppermine, and now back to CMOS with a silicon fin.....
Mmmrrrppphh, full circle you have come young Jedi.
-Yoda
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.
10 Nanometer you say? Whats that in Thickness of Human Hair?
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
I'm not sure which New Zealand YOU live in, but the New Zealand standard for 1 billion is 1*10^9 not 1*10^12
This is one of the rare occasions where I agree with the American definition, since it's useful. Who the hell would want to say 1 thousound million when they can just say 1 billion?
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Consumers don't like being lied to
Yeah, but who's lying to them?
AMD rates their processors with a number that looks like a clock speed, but isn't labelled as one.
Intel gives their processors a high clock speed and implies that that makes them inherently superior, when it clearly doesn't.
Technically, neither is lying, but they're both being slightly dishonest. And what are people gonna do to avoid being "lied" to, buy a Mac?
you are right, this week Intel is faster again... I can never keep up with these things.
sic transit gloria mundi
Because AMD isn't like that. They're a very "show me the money" type company: look when the new Thoroughbread Rev B came out. Little fanfare, it just happened.
Now if Intel were actually shipping 4.1GHZ CPUs, I might be impressed. Remember that they can probably only maintain this frequency with hand-picked CPUs and components, watercooling (posibly peltier as well), large fans, etc. It's just not reasonable so far.
billion = 32K x 32K (2D) 32 trillion = 32K x 32K x 32K (3D)
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.
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Yes it *does* boil down to all that. I hate to disrpupt your perfect little universe, but just because you can't accept another viewpoint doesn't makes yours the *only* viewpoint.
You can move the whole universe if you view yourself as the center..
You can't move the whole universe if you don't view yourself as the center..
Both are correct statements depending on your viewpoint.
A giant calls me an ant.
An ant calls me a giant.
Both statements are true yet they are in opposition.
Learn Perspective!
Insanely Large Scale Intergrated Circuits?
If your happy with the "I don't believe it so it can't exist mentality...more power to ya!"
I think that's also known as sticking ones head in the sand.
The point of making it smaller is so there's less current flow, and thus less heat. Granted, they'll pack more in, so the overall effect will probably be more heat generation, but per transistor, smaller ones do generate less heat.
You are right though. The smaller they make them the more they'll pack in. Without some kind of active cooling system in the chip the thing will glow like a hotplate.
"The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long." - Bladerunner (the movie, not the 1974 book about a renegade surgeon that performs operations and smuggles medical supplies in a world where medical care is free only if you submit to castration after the Earth was plagued by a lethal spinal meningitis flu. It involves the concept of a national healthcare system overwhelmed by a viral outbreak and the problem of skyrocketing costs to the nation and a eugenics shortcut to cut corners). GOOGLE up [ "Alan Nourse" "Bladerunner" ] or [ "Alan Nourse" "Blade Runner" ] to understand.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.