No 20nm Chips from AMD Just Yet; Plans to Launch Second Half of 2015

March 27, 2015

Category: CPU's Posted:02:47PMAuthor: bp9801

The 20nm manufacturing process is supposed to be the next step, with AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel releasing parts with it. So far only Intel has done anything, as it has used the similar 22nm process on Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge, and even the new 14nm process on Broadwell. However, GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD, and CPUs/APUs from AMD, have only dropped down to 28nm. The mobile processor from NVIDIA, the Tegra X1, is 20nm, however. AMD was supposed to have 20nm parts out by now, and even NVIDIA's Titan X card is still on the 28nm process (hopefully 22/20nm for the Pascal line), but so far nothing. Recently some news has come out from the AMD side, and it looks like we'll have 20nm AMD APUs and SoCs, part of the company's Project Skybridge initiative, in the second half of this year. It may even extend to the AMD video card stack, but first will be the APU/SoC products.

AMD's first 20nm parts are projected to be the Amur line, which will come in both x86 and ARM flavors. The Amur line is aimed at the low power market, like the Intel Bay Trail and upcoming Cherry Trail, but will be the followup to the Nolan line, which AMD has repurposed as the Carrizo-L APUs on the 28nm process. Unfortunately, one wrinkle in the whole thing is that AMD has apparently not even begun using TSMC's 20nm process for the chips. Production usually kicks off months before release anyway, but the earliest the 20nm chips can launch will be anytime from July to the end of this year. AMD does plan for these chips to be in notebooks, tablets, and even Android devices thanks to HSA support and the GCN architecture; just not anytime soon.

Source: KitGuru via WCCFTech