Finally a trip to the Southern Isles; AMD's new HD 7970

Subject: General Tech | January 2, 2012 - 01:26 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: tahiti, HD 7970, 28nm, southern islands

With 2,048 stream processors, 3GB of GDDR5 memory, and DVI,  HDMI and a pair of mini-Displayport outputs the new HD 7970 can support six displays and might even have the power to do it well.  Internal reviews, which are to be taken with your daily allowance of NaCl, suggest a 70-90% jump in performance when compared to the previous generation of AMD GPUs.  This all comes at a cost however, with a ~$700 price tag being predicted for the base model and unfortunately that is likely what you will get.  Even though AMD opened up the specifications for their manufacturers, allowing them to set whatever clock speeds and cooling solutions they desired it seems that most companies opted to go with the reference model, at least for now.   The other cost is power; the new 28nm process allows extremely low powered idling but as the card requires both an 8 pin and a 6 pin PCIe power connector you can be assured the card will use a lot of power when going full out, especially if you utilize the automatic 33% overclock that is enabled by the Powertune application mentioned by The Inquirer in their article.

"CHIP DESIGNER AMD has released the Radeon HD 7970 based on its Tahiti GPU chip.

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 is the first graphics board design based on its 28nm Southern Islands Tahiti GPU. The chip, which AMD claims has 4.3bn transistors, has been significantly changed from the previous Northern Islands generation Cayman Radeon HD 6970, has more on-chip cache and the firm claims it has greater overclocking headroom."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Acer, Lenovo to launch Wintel tablet PC in 3Q12 @ DigiTimes
• Why The Radeon Gallium3D Performance Is Down @ Phoronix
• Who will take over AMD marketing for 2012? @ Kitguru
• Beginners Guides: 99 Performance Tips for Windows XP v1.7 @ PCSTATS
• Parrot AR.Drone @ techPowerUp
• Samsung Monochrome ML-2950ND Laser Printer Review @ Modsynergy
• NewerTech NuTouch Gloves Review @ circuitREMIX
• Magellan RoadMate Pro 9165T Review @ TechReviewSource
• Win DDR3 memory Kits courtesy of ADATA! @ Kitguru
• Patriot Viper Xtreme 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Contest @ Legit Reviews

TSMC finds its 28nm dance card a little overbooked

Subject: General Tech | November 25, 2011 - 12:21 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: TSMC, 28nm, amd, krishna, wichita

The 28nm process is causing a lot of problems for tech companies especially AMD who have cancelled the follow ups to Llano and Ontario, Krishna and Wichita.  Not only have they cancelled the chips but they have switched from GLOBALFOUNDRIES to TSMC to have the replacement chips designed and fabbed.  This is most likely because of the low yields that have been coming out of GLOBALFOUNDRIES with Llano, AMD's most successful recent design.  The low volumes hurt AMD's market share since many companies would not base a product line on a chip that might not be around in volume.  As well a deal is expiring in January which had AMD only paying for good dies, instead of the more usual practice of paying for the entire wafer and dealing with the bad dies as they come

That move might not be as successful as AMD hopes when you look at this article from DigiTimes.  As it turns out TSMC is concerned about their ability to meet the demand for 28nm chips from their customers.  It is not just AMD that is turning to TSMC for 28nm, Altera, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Xilinx are already customers and Broadcom, LSI Logic and STMicroelectronics may join that crowd.  With so many customers utilizing the same process even small problems on TSMC's lines could lead to big drops in available chips.  Let us hope the days of the 40nm problems at TSMC never come back.

"Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) continues to see orders heat up for advanced 28nm technology, despite a general slowdown in the semiconductor industry, according to industry sources. Order visibility has stretched to about six months, said the sources.

TSMC is expected to see 28nm processes account for more than 2% of company revenues in the fourth quarter of 2011. The proportion will expand further to over 10% in 2012, as more available capacity coupled with rising customer demand boost the output, the sources indicated."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Toaster oven reflow control without modifying the oven @ Hack a Day
• Making a privacy monitor from an old LCD @ Hack a Day
• Intel Breathes New Life Into Pentium @ The Inquirer
• Beaky the Robo-Bird picks our "Top Tech Turkeys of 2011" @ Ars Technica
• Best Buy Black Friday Deceptive Practices @ TechwareLabs
• Black Friday Tech Deals @ TechReviewSource
• 3rd Annual Holiday Giveaway - Black Friday @Hi Tech Legion

A milquetoast reception to the next generation of GPUs

Subject: General Tech | October 26, 2011 - 11:56 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gpu, amd, nvidia, southern islands, kepler, TSMC, 28nm

While most enthusiasts are living up to the name as far as the build up to the coming GPU refreshes from both AMD and NVIDIA is concerned, the manufacturers are quite the opposite.  There are several probable reasons for this attitude, not least of which are the number of HD 6570s and GTS 450s that are still in their stock.  Remember those cards from back in the spring of this year, which were the high end of a huge range of GPUs from both companies spanning $20 to either side of $100?  Think that with the current generation of Llano and SandyBridge that any knowledgeable person is going to purchase one, let alone when you consider how close the release of next generation of APUs is?  The two major players in the discrete GPU market not only updated the top end of their cards quickly over the past several quarters there was a widening of the market which saw current generation cards available from ~$75 to ~$750 with some segments separated by as little as $10.  That translates to huge inventories at the manufacturer level which they then have to convince resellers and retailers to purchase for stock to sell to the consumer and many of those cards are still sitting there collecting dust.  No wonder these same companies are leery of purchasing more stock before finding a way to recover some profit from the stock they have now.

To make things even worse there exist doubts about the 28nm process from TSMC, which DigiTimes discusses here.  While AMD is still claiming delivery of HD7000 family cards before the coming year, the troubles that NVIDIA seems to be having with the same process concerns those who need to be able to buy large volumes of chips in order to turn a profit selling graphics cards.  Even worse is the realization that the first cards NVIDIA will be releasing are simply a die shrink, without architectural changes.  When two companies go to the same source for the same thing and one reports getting apple cider and the other apple vinegar, you really have to start to wonder what is really going on. 

"While Nvidia and AMD are poised to use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) 28nm technology to produce the GPUs Kepler and Southern Islands respectively, most Taiwan-based graphics card makers hold a conservative attitude about the new GPUs with some makers cautiously watching the market status before making any further decisions, according to industry sources.

Compared to the makers' eagerness for the previous-generation GPUs, graphics card makers are rather conservative about the upcoming 28nm chips due to concerns such as TSMC's weak 40nm process yield rate issues may re-occur in its 28nm process and weakening demand for graphics cards and lower-than-expected gross margins."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Did Nvidia have to spin their 28nm GPU shrinks? @ SemiAccurate
• PARC, Thinfilm unveil first printed, flexible CMOS computer circuit @ ExtremeTech
• AIDA64 v2.00 is released !
• Linus Torvalds discusses ARM issues at Linuxcon Europe @ The Inquirer
• KDE 4: Leader of the Semantic Pack @ Linux
• IBM names Ginni Rometty prez and CEO @ The Register
• Samsung Announces PM830 Prices in NYC Gala Event With Batman @ SSD Review

Oh Llano, wherefore art thou?

Subject: General Tech | October 3, 2011 - 12:14 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: llano, APU, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, 28nm, 32nm, trinity, amd

Woe is AMD, as it becomes ever more obvious that Llano is not giving good yields at GLOBALFOUNDRIES.  Back in July the market noticed that while the new Llano chips were great at providing good enough graphics for a great price, they were very hard to find.  As a consumer you might be able to find a notebook to purchase for yourself but as a reseller who needs to buy processors in the thousands before considering that chip as a part of the new product line up you have been out of luck.  According to DigiTimes this will change in 2012 with the arrival of Trinity which will still use GLOBALFOUNDRIES 32nm process, turning to TSMC for the 28nm graphical portion.  The previous hope that the supply problems would be solved in September were obviously a little too optimistic.

"Supply of AMD's Llano APUs, affected by Globalfoundries's lower-than-expected 32nm yield rates, has been significantly limited and is unlikely to recover until the company's upcoming Trinity arrives in 2012, according to sources from motherboard players. When asked about the company's upcoming Trinity schedule, AMD Taiwan declined to comment on unannounced products.

AMD started suffering from Llano APU supply shortages in July due to the yield issues and the company originally expected the supply status to return to normal in September. However, judging from the current situation, the sources believe the company's supply volume is unlikely to meet client demand through the end of 2011.

The sources estimated that the yield rate issue should be resolved in 2012, when Trinity launches."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Fanless PCs with 95W CPUs shown off @ SemiAccurate
• Vulnerability in HTC smartphones exposes user data @ The Inquirer
• Mozilla releases Rescuefox prototype @ The Inquirer
• Pandemonium as Microsoft AV nukes Chrome browser @ The Register
• Btrfs File-System For Old Computers? @ Phoronix
• Virtual showdown: Parallels Desktop 7 and VMware Fusion 4 @ Ars Technica
• A Beginner’s Guide to Video Encoding @ t-break
• Real World Labs And Enermax Joint Contest

AMD CFO States They Will Have 28 Nano-meter GPUs Out This Year

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 27, 2011 - 12:57 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: gpu, amd, 28nm

A few weeks ago, a rumor regarding TSMC experiencing issues with NVIDIA’s 28nm manufacturing process for GPUs spread across the Internet. Not long after that rumor, a new rumor emerged that stated AMD would beat NVIDIA to 28nm. More information has now reached us in the form of a quote from AMD’s CFO Thomas Seifert who stated the following during the Q2 2011 Earnings Call:

“We also passed several critical milestones in the second quarter as we prepare our next-generation 28-nanometer graphics family. We have working silicon in-house and remain on track to deliver the first members of what we expect will be another industry-leading GPU family to market later this year. We expect to be at the forefront of the GPU industry's transition to 28-nanometer.”

With some talk of the new Radeon HD 7xxx series coming out as early as September, the statement that AMD has working silicon is a good sign that they are on track to deliver GPUs on the small 28nm manufacturing process. Whether they can beat NVIDIA to it; however, still remains to be seen. With that said, things are looking good for AMD’s GPU division. What are your thoughts on this, will NVIDIA pull a Hail Mary and get Kepler out of the gate before AMD can ramp up production of the new Radeons?

Southern Island is ahead of the pack, but it is set to low power for now

Subject: General Tech | July 20, 2011 - 12:25 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: southern islands, nvidia, gpu, amd, 28nm

Thanks to some information garnered by SemiAccurate we have a very good idea of AMD's release plans for their new GPU family, what we have been referring to as Southern Islands.  The confusion that we felt from AMD's announcement that Southern Island parts would be ready sooner than expected arose from the reported difficulties that TSMC was having with their 28nm HKMG process.  Thankfully someone had a chance to take apart some 28nm TSMC field programmable arrays and inside found a HKMG design modified for lower power states than the original specs.  That doesn't mean cellphone level graphics performance but certainly means that the first GPUs we see from Southern Islands will not be the high end cards.  AMD did the same thing with previous generations of GPUs, so the release schedule is becoming a habit, even if not what would be preferred.

There are other side effects to this choice by AMD and TSMC which are probably going to hurt NVIDIA, who are hoping to get full power Kepler based GPUs out at the beginning of next year.  Since NVIDIA tends towards more aggressive clocks, the experience that TSMC has with what is called the HPL 28nm process will not necessarily help NVIDIA's HKMG 28nm process.  SemiAccurate has more.

"The final piece of the TSMC 28nm HKMG process puzzle was put in place at SemiCon last week, it now makes sense. Chipworks got ahold of a Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA, and it revealed a few secrets on the operating table.

If you recall, AMD is on track to put out Southern Islands chips much earlier than most people, SemiAccurate included, expected, possibly even this quarter. The real question is what process they are going to make it on, the TSMC 40nm SiON or 28nm HKMG? 40nm would be big, hot, and limited, think volcanic island more than Southern, while the 28nm SHP HKMG process wasn’t supposed to be ready until late Q1, best case. The short story is that Southern Islands is very likely not on either one."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Intel buys a networking chip design firm @ The Inquirer
• Back to the Mac: OS X 10.7 Lion @ AnandTech
• Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica review
• Intel to launch new Celeron processors in September @ DigiTimes
• Google+ makes stalking easier @ t-break
• VidaBox iPad Wall Mount Review @ Madshrimps

As expected NVIDIA's next generation GPU release schedule was a bit optimistic

Subject: General Tech | July 8, 2011 - 12:37 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: nvidia, amd, 28nm, kepler, maxwell

TSMC's 28nm wafer yields are having a negative effect on NVIDIA's scheduled release of their next generation of GPUs, no matter what the PR coming out of NVIDIA might suggest.  That news is coming from graphics card manufacturers who were hoping to release cards but have since seen NVIDIA's scheduled releases delayed by a year.  While it may be true that TSMC is partly to blame for the delay there is also talk about the chips performance being lower than was expected and is needed to challenge AMD.  The news for NVIDIA gets even worse as DigiTimes confirms that AMD is still on schedule with it's 28nm chips.  This may seem like a bit of deja vu, as we saw similar production problems from TSMC's initial 40nm chips; though that effected both major GPU makers more or less equally.

"Despite Nvidia CEO Huang Jen-hsun previously saying that the company is set to announce its new 28nm GPU architecture at the end of 2011 and 22/20nm in 2013, sources from graphics card makers have pointed out that Nvidia has already adjusted its roadmap and delayed 28nm Kepler and 22/20nm Maxwell to 2012 and 2014.

The sources believe that the delay is due to unsatisfactory yield rates of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) 28nm process as well as lower-than-expected performance of Kepler.

TSMC originally expected its 28nm capacity at Fab15 to be available in the fourth quarter of 2011 and was set to start pilot production for its 20nm process technology in the third quarter of 2012.

However, TSMC's other major client Qualcomm, currently, still has not yet adjusted its 28nm process schedule and is set to launch three new products, 8960. 8270 and 8260A using dual-core Krait architecture in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Meanwhile, AMD will follow its original schedule and enter the 28nm era in the first half of 2012. The company's next-generation graphics chips Southern Island as well as Krishna and Wichita processors, which will replace the existing Ontraio and Zacate processors, and will all adopt a 28nm process from TSMC."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• IA releases a dual-core 1.6GHz EPIA board @ The Inquirer
• Ubuntu ushers me out of the Windows XP era @ The Tech Report
• Your Friday must-see video: 14 minute Bioshock Infinite demo @ Ars Technica
• Last flight of the Space Shuttle: a 30-year retrospective @ Ars Technica
• Google: Go public on Profiles or we'll delete you @ The Register
• AMD's Brazos E-450 detailed @ Fudzilla
• Only jailbroken iPhones, iPads can be safe from latest vuln @ The Register
• TRENDnet 450Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter @ Maximum CPU
• ASUS USB-N13 802.11n Network Adapter Review @ ThinkComputers
• The Summer of Honeycomb, Part 1: Win an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer @ AnandTech
• Modders-Inc Junes's FRotM Winner - The Ultimate Computer Desk