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Samsung Reaches Milestone For 14nm Technology
An anonymous reader writes "Samsung announced a milestone on its development of 14nm manufacturing semiconductors, claiming that it offers major advantages to system-on-chip devices using in consumer electronic products (especially lower power). They recently taped out a Cortex-A7 processor with this technology, calling it a significant milestone for the fabless ecosystem."
Something Austin Powers wouldn't go near or attempt to save, I expect.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"Tape out" is a term of art of the processor industry. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape-out where the first sentence will tell you "In electronics design, tape-out or tapeout is the final result of the design cycle for integrated circuits or printed circuit boards, the point at which the artwork for the photomask of a circuit is sent for manufacture."
"Fabless ecosystem" is another term of art of the processor industry. Wikipedia is similarly helpful here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabless_manufacturing -- where the first sentence will read "Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing the fabrication or "fab" of the devices to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry."
STFW FTW.
With mobile devices, the CPU as well as many other logic components (GPU, accelerometers, compass, GPS, video decompression) are provided as licensed silicon designs. These designs are combined together by a separate vendor to form a complete system, thus System-On-A-Chip. These companies don't make boards, connectors, chips, or even silicon dies, they just license designs and device drivers. MEMS alone allows sensors like accelerometers, compasses to be implemented using standard silicon manufacturing processes with no additional hardware required. Other companies may provide profiling and debugging tools. So a complete ecosystem forms.
With Samsung being able to get down to 14nm, that means every company benefits. There is now space for more transistors, so everyone can add more features, more cache memory, more cores.
Just like Linux. One group does kernel work, another group does compilers and debuggers, someone else does GUI, X-windows, and others maintain web browsers, device drivers and command line applications. These are all combined to form a Linux distribution ISO file.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
you know AMD is only 10 months younger than intel right? or that Acron computers, where the ARM guys came from has been developing their cpu since the 1980's?
cause you make it sound like they just popped up out of nowhere yesterday, or maybe that's just your uninformed tinfoil hat conspiracy that intel, 2pac and sea lab are really ruling the world.
With Samsung being able to get down to 14nm, that means every company benefits.
You put too much polish on the apple.
Fabless means you are someone else's Bitch. You have to buy from someone else because you don't have a fabrication facility to make your own processors.
Like Apple, currently shopping around for another chip manufacturer after Samsung raised prices, (to earn back billion dollar fine which will most likely be overturned on appeal). Even if Apple finds another fab to make their processors and related chips, they will still be a generation behind Samsung.
With the power savings available at 14nm, Samsung will be able to ask premium prices. All the smaller manufactures will end up buying from Samsung.
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