Slashdot Mirror


Samsung Announces 10nm SoC In Mass-Production (anandtech.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from AnandTech: Today Samsung announced mass production of a SoC built on its third-generation 10nm "10LPE" manufacturing node. It was only this January that Samsung announced mass production of its 14LPP process that ended up being used in the Exynos 8890 and the Snapdragon 820 powering up a large amount of flagship devices this year. There wasn't any specification as to what kind of SoC the mass production announcement is referring to, but it's very likely we're talking about S.LSI's next generation Exynos -- or maybe even Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 successor, both of which we'll hopefully hear official announcements from in the coming months. The process promises some significant speed and power efficiency advantages over current generation designs so it's likely the next generation of devices will see a large boost, similarly to how the first 14/16 SoCs had large improvements over previous generation 20/28nm designs. Interestingly the new SoCs will have an edge on recent and upcoming designs still being released on 16nm manufacturing processes, such as Apple's A10 or other TSMC customers who have to wait till next year for 10FF. Samsung writes in its press release: "Samsung's new 10nm FinFET process (10LPE) adopts an advanced 3D transistor structure with additional enhancements in both process technology and design enablement compared to its 14nm predecessor, allowing up to 30-percent increase in area efficiency with 27-percent higher performance or 40-percent lower power consumption. In order to overcome scaling limitations, cutting edge techniques such as triple-patterning to allow bi-directional routing are also used to retain design and routing flexibility from prior nodes."

27 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. wow by bugs2squash · · Score: 3, Funny

    this is going to be HOT

    --
    Nullius in verba
    1. Re:wow by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1

      They are really on fire. The performance is going to be blazing with a lot more bang for your buck. They are smoking the competition.

      Sorry - couldn't help myself. I actually like the Samsung products I've owned...

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
    2. Re:wow by sconeu · · Score: 1

      It's explosive news!! This will arrive with a bang!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    3. Re:wow by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 1

      I am inflamed, bursting with joy!

  2. Fire suppression by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Will it have built-in fire suppression? I know, that's the feature I'll be looking for in my next Samsung phone.

  3. Re:for those of us who don't work next to Bunny Hu by bugs2squash · · Score: 5, Funny

    Source of Conflagration

    --
    Nullius in verba
  4. Re:for those of us who don't work next to Bunny Hu by Breaker_1 · · Score: 2

    System on Chip

  5. Re:Quick question by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    I still think catching fire is a great feature but it needs to work on demand instead of at random.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  6. Re:for those of us who don't work next to Bunny Hu by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Actually, to be fair, while /. is on top of every software concept out there, it is pretty clueless when it comes to the semiconductor industry

  7. More like "10nm(TM)" by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 2

    The "nanometers" game is a big scam. You can call your process whatever you want based on any of various parameters and based on how you want to market it.

    Not sure how Samsung's stacks up, but TSMC is claiming they will soon have 10nm (TM) soon and their process is more like a traditional 14-16nm process.

    It's all a bunch of fakery and lies. The proof is in the pudding of performance, yield, and profits due to density.

    1. Re:More like "10nm(TM)" by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      They are saying it is a 30% increase in transistor density. This figure probably isnt a lie. Intel was the first company to begin to falsely state feature size, so just follow the transistor counts and chip sizes.

      30% is a pretty good gain.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    2. Re:More like "10nm(TM)" by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Has Samsung actually leapfrogged Intel in fabrication technology?

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  8. SoC - standard term of art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Are you a high level web programmer

    You could have just said "are you not actually a programmer?"

    I am perfectly willing to go with "If you don't know what an SoC is, you are definitely not a programmer, you're probably not even worthy of the not-very-kind appellation 'script kiddy.' The word that comes to mind is actually 'clueless.""

  9. Re:for those of us who don't work next to Bunny Hu by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    The first one is Compact Pyrotechnic Unit.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  10. LOL @ Zeitgeist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So here we have an article about a technical thing on Slashdot and we see an example of the cultural zeitgeist. We all know about the Note 7 and we all want to be part of the in-joke, so you see post after post about fires and explosions.

    1. Re:LOL @ Zeitgeist by Desler · · Score: 1

      Well it's just that we can't all pack as much innovation into our posts as Samsung did into the Note 7.

    2. Re:LOL @ Zeitgeist by bn-7bc · · Score: 1

      Ok I'll try to ask a slightly on topic question , how big a gein in power eficiensy will this give over a SoC produced with the previous gate demention?

    3. Re:LOL @ Zeitgeist by Desler · · Score: 1

      Couldn't be bothered to read the summary?

      and design enablement compared to its 14nm predecessor, allowing up to 30-percent increase in area efficiency with 27-percent higher performance or 40-percent lower power consumption.

    4. Re:LOL @ Zeitgeist by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Worst thing is, they leave out the inb4.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  11. How does this compare to Intel by jonwil · · Score: 2

    How does the technology being used for these chips compare to the latest and greatest Intel are doing? Intel has had fabs that are a generation or 2 in front of everyone else for many years now, does this new technology mean someone is finally catching up to Intel?

    1. Re:How does this compare to Intel by edxwelch · · Score: 1

      Intel will have 10nm next year which is more dense than Samsung's 10nm, but on the other hand the yield isn't too good. It won't be until 2018 that the 10nm yield is good enough for their 4 core chips.
      By that time TSMC have 7nm which is denser than Intel's 10nm. So basically, yes Intel has lost the lead. TSMC will be ahead of everybody in 2018.

    2. Re:How does this compare to Intel by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      So basically, yes Intel has lost the lead. TSMC will be ahead of everybody in 2018.

      It's the sense I'm getting. And basically, it reflects the shift from a PC-centric market to phone-centric.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  12. 'good old HCF by stooo · · Score: 1

    Samsung is implementing support for the good old HCF instruction
    But they are working hard to implement a safety CPF instruction (Continue, Prevent Fire), to be sure you don't explode the device too soon.

    --
    aaaaaaa
  13. Penis Size by stooo · · Score: 1

    Yeah, such small Penis sizes exist only in Marketing, for sure.

    --
    aaaaaaa
  14. acid reflux hellban honeypot by epine · · Score: 1

    Somehow this story showed up in my Slashdot feed, when it's really just supposed to trigger a mass outpouring of the reflex derision arc among those so inclined (said barf cookies falsely paraded by its practitioners as chuckle fodder).

    "There, don't you feel better now? Now come sit with us at the adult table." Amazing what a quickie bile purge can accomplish in raising the level of discussion elsewhere.

    This is all good. Yet somehow my dank, reeking bile seems to have been misclassified as grasshopper lipstick and I seem to be trapped in completely the wrong purgative honeypot. Where do I unclick "chuckle fodder"? Where do I unclick "news-item-of-the-week free-association paralympics"? Which direction do I kneel to moon Marvin, patron saint of universal laugh-at-anything good will?

    No, I'm not new here. It must be shocking to some that I haven't figured out my account configuration yet. You'd think I'd know by now that no unexplored configuration sub-menu goes ultimately unpunished.

    Well, now I know. True hell is becoming stuck in the wrong hellban honeypot.

  15. Re:for those of us who don't work next to Bunny Hu by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

    System on a Chip. Basically the guts of whatever you're building. You may have other chipsets for auxiliary purposes (radios, GPS, etc) but this is what makes your device. In this case, it is a bit vague, since you can have SoC for a lot of reasons. But we all can assume it's an ARM based chip for use in Android products.

    In my local appliance store, they're selling a Samsung fridge with Windows 10 on it. I've seen the horror that you've seen. THE HORROR.

  16. Re:for those of us who don't work next to Bunny Hu by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

    welcome to slashdot... where people say "i don't know X, please teach me" and the response is "FUCK YOU HOW COME YOU DON'T KNOW X!!!"

    I exaggerate for effect, but not by much.

    Think of it this way, what abstraction layer is being broken if you don't know what an SoC is? What model of programming is broken? If you don't know a CPU from a GPU, yeah, you're gonna fail at some point. If you think all memory is the same and you don't think of cache vs RAM vs spinning rust, then you'll have an unacceptable app. But an SoC vs many discrete chips? How will that break you?