Intel officially announcing 10nm manufacturing

[WMGroomAK]

In an article from OC3D, Intel has officially announced their 10nm manufacturing technology which will supposedly pack in 2x as many transistors as competing '10nm' nodes.

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/intel_officially_announces_their_10nm_manufacturing_technology/1

 

According to the article:

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Intel has now officially announced their 10nm manufacturing technology, stating that it packs 2x as many transistors than competing "10nm" manufacturing nodes. 

 

This third Generation FinFET manufacturing node from Intel is a true 10nm design, one that the company states is "a full generation ahead of other "10nm" technologies". This is because the industry does not use a standardised unit of measurement for defining the "size" of a manufacturing node.

As for when we may see these fully implemented in chips, the article points out:

 

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Intel's 10nm manufacturing process has so far not yielded the performance results that Intel wanted, with their 1st generation node offering either a 25% performance boost over 14nm or 45% lower power draw. Compare this to 14nm++, Intel's 3rd generation 14nm node, which offers a 26% performance boost or a 26% reduction in power draw when compared to 14nm.  

 

This makes Intel better off using 14nm++ for now, as 10nm would not yield any performance gains over 14nm++, a node which likely has higher yields and manufacturing capacity. Intel's baseline 10nm process will be superior for low power designs, but not for high-end products. 

 

Intel already has already created their 10nm+ node, which will offer a 15% performance boost over 10nm, with up to a 30% reduction in power, which is more than enough to make it a suitable replacement for 14nm++. 

Hopefully this means that we will see Intel formally moving beyond 14nm by the end of 2018 with a 10nm+ chip.  

 

EDIT: Additional detail from Hot Hardware:  http://hothardware.com/news/intel-details-advanced-10nm-node

 

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Intel claims that further refinements at 10nm mean its upcoming Cannonlake processors will provide up to a 25 percent uplift in performance, while consuming 45 percent less power than 14nm counterparts (i.e. Skylake and Kaby Lake). Looking further down the roadmap, Intel has an “enhanced” 10nm process on its roadmap called 10++ that adds another 15 percent performance increase and up to a 30 percent drop in power consumption.

It will be interesting to see if they can meet these targets with the 10nm++.

 

EDIT 2:  In an additional article from Hexus (http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/104080-intel-claims-10nm-process-full-generation-ahead-rivals/)

 

Intel presented some additional information on how they are claiming their 10nm process is a "full generation ahead" of their closest competitors.  

 

From the article: 

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Much of Intel's claimed 10nm process advantage is down to the use of library height scaling and 'hyper scaling'. Scale reduction technology allows Intel to continue the benefits of Moore’s Law economics "by delivering transistors that are smaller and have lower cost-per-transistor". It can do this even though the transition between process nodes appears to have slowed down.

 

According to the timeline plans published with this, Intel is looking at being on the 10nm process for about 3-years before transitioning to 7nm.

 

As a part of this, 

Quote

Much of Intel's claimed 10nm process advantage is down to the use of library height scaling and 'hyper scaling'. Scale reduction technology allows Intel to continue the benefits of Moore’s Law economics "by delivering transistors that are smaller and have lower cost-per-transistor". It can do this even though the transition between process nodes appears to have slowed down.

Honestly though, I'm thinking that there will be some major physics hurdles that they are going to have to overcome in the near future for transitioning beyond 7nm processes.  Maybe some new materials will have to be used in the construction of these processors.

[AnonymousGuy]

1 minute ago, Aleksiandrovich said:

I still don't see the point of this for power users; it, from what i have seen and heard about, has no performance gains or substantial ones that would justify its production costs surrounding 10nm.

Packing more performance in the same TDP / thermal envelope.

[captain_to_fire]

So yay for laptops and tablets then... 

[aisle9]

So basically, 14nm is the new Bulldozer.

[Damascus]

W00T, can't wait for a 10nm laptop

[IceCold008]

Wish Intel would do something about gaming preformance  in each of there generation of CPU. Its not exactly awe inspiring when a new CPU is released. 

[4960X]

inb4 $2000 4 core CPUs.

[Citadelen]

10 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

So basically, 14nm is the new Bulldozer.

Wait, what? How can a manufacturing node be like an architecture.

Anywho, Intel loves hyping their nodes, it's all they've got going for them moving forward now, we won't see 10nm desktop parts from Intel for a couple of years, by which point we'll most likely have Zen+ on 7nm. 

[aisle9]

8 minutes ago, Citadelen said:

Wait, what? How can a manufacturing node be like an architecture.

Anywho, Intel loves hyping their nodes, it's all they've got going for them moving forward now, we won't see 10nm desktop parts from Intel for a couple of years, by which point we'll most likely have Zen+ on 7nm. 

Bulldozer was released in 2012 and warmed over repeatedly until 2017.

 

14nm was released with Broadwell in 2014, and will continue to be warmed over with minimal generational improvement until, at best, late 2018. Kaby Lake is already clock-for-clock identical to Skylake. The 14nm node has become Intel's Bulldozer.

[Mira Yurizaki]

To be fair, mass production of 10nm just barely started. Physics is being a cruel mistress. So it's likely the next full node isn't going to be in full production for another few years at least.

[rawrdaysgoby]

42 minutes ago, Aleksiandrovich said:

I still don't see the point of this for power users; it, from what i have seen and heard about, has no performance gains or substantial ones that would justify its production costs surrounding 10nm.

you are wrong a small node means you can MAKE FAR more on one of that disc

[AnonymousGuy]

39 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

So yay for laptops and tablets then... 

And desktops.  Why do you think a 7700K has a 4.2Ghz base clock and 9 years ago 2.6Ghz was the base clock?  Process node refinements, baby.

[Belgarathian]

43 minutes ago, 4960X said:

inb4 $2000 4 core CPUs.

And hardware DRM for 1080p videos. 

[Zeruel]

4 minutes ago, rawrdaysgoby said:

you are wrong a small node means you can MAKE FAR more on one of that disc

 

The disks are called Waffles, errr I mean wafers 

[zMeul]

this is why Intel is Intel and no one else can touch their technology advancements

 

Intel's 10nm is denser than TSMC's 7nm process

https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2017/03/10-nm-technology-fact-sheet.pdf

[captain_to_fire]

So team blue all the way I guess... 

[MoonSpot]

13 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

And hardware DRM for 1080p videos. 

HA!  Oh wait...

[4960X]

will Intel ever give us a 6 core in the mainstream segment???

[WMGroomAK]

I honestly think the most interesting portion of this is one of the reasons they have not switched to the 10nm process was that their 3rd gen 14nm process was seeing very similar performance to the 1st gen 10nm.  It kind of makes me wonder if the 10nm process will be a long lived one with multiple refinements matching what the future 7nm will perform or will 7nm make the 10nm process short lived.  Also, what kind of unexpected hurdles will the 7nm process give beyond going to 10nm. 

 

Off-Topic (slightly): Please no fanboyism on why Intel or AMD is the better company...  

[RagnarokDel]

5 hours ago, aisle9 said:

So basically, 14nm is the new Bulldozer.

AMD is going to be on 7 nm in 2018 or 2019, I believe

[Misanthrope]

3 hours ago, WMGroomAK said:

I honestly think the most interesting portion of this is one of the reasons they have not switched to the 10nm process was that their 3rd gen 14nm process was seeing very similar performance to the 1st gen 10nm.  It kind of makes me wonder if the 10nm process will be a long lived one with multiple refinements matching what the future 7nm will perform or will 7nm make the 10nm process short lived.  Also, what kind of unexpected hurdles will the 7nm process give beyond going to 10nm. 

 

Off-Topic (slightly): Please no fanboyism on why Intel or AMD is the better company...  

It that didn't improve much I suspect they'll focus more on power saving and thus mobile and laptop parts. Hopefully they'll stop their stupid practices of looking things with DRM to Kaby but if anything, given the performance parity, we'll see more features arbitrarily locked down sadly.

[Energycore]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

It that didn't improve much I suspect they'll focus more on power saving and thus mobile and laptop parts. Hopefully they'll stop their stupid practices of looking things with DRM to Kaby but if anything, given the performance parity, we'll see more features arbitrarily locked down sadly.

Locking down features is the new version of progress

[Princess Luna]

3 hours ago, 4960X said:

will Intel ever give us a 6 core in the mainstream segment???

Thinking of the same thing, if this brings an i7 8700/8700k 6c/12t then I applaud it, if all going to stay the same and energy efficiency is the main gain here then meh... might as well as wait the 7nm to upgrade a cpu again.

[Tam3n]

Interesting times, we shall see how far silicon can be pushed.

 

They say up to 15 % performance boost with up to 30 % reduction in power, but it should be noted that it's one or the other, not both at the same time.

 

To get the quoted performance benefit, the chip needs to operate at the same power as the old design. If transistor density is 2.7x higher, power/area (power density) is also 2.7x higher. I just wonder how the cooling works, but it has been done with all the node shrinks up until now, so I guess it just works somehow...

[Coaxialgamer]

7 hours ago, zMeul said:

this is why Intel is Intel and no one else can touch their technology advancements

 

Intel's 10nm is denser than TSMC's 7nm process

https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2017/03/10-nm-technology-fact-sheet.pdf

Actually , looking at the formula ASML ( the company that designs the lithography equipement ) devised , you can deduce a "standard node value" based on the different characteristics of the node . Intel's 10nm ( 9.5nm ) , while denser than both tsmc and samsung's 10nm nodes ( 11.3 nm and 12nm respectively ), is still significantly less dense than their 7nm nodes ( 8.2nm for TSMC / Gloflo , 8.4nm for Samsung ) .

 

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6160-2016-leading-edge-semiconductor-landscape.html

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6498-2017-leading-edge-semiconductor-landscape.html