Re:Intel's 10nm Is Broken, Delayed Until 2019
by dragontamer on Friday April 27, 2018 @11:29AM
(#16941504)
> Can someone explaing why it's important to increase the density instead of increasing the size of a CPU?
* Yields: silicon wafers have regular manufacturing errors. A bigger die means more failed CPUs, grossly increasing prices. Smaller dies isolate those errors better, leading to better yields. Lets say there are around 20-errors per wafer. 100-chips per wafer would result in ~80is to 85ish successful chips per batch.
If you shrunk the die so that you had 500-chips per wafer, then you have 480-chips after manufacturing (20-defects).
Wafers are a constant size. Errors are relatively constant as well. You can't change those numbers.
* Power: Smaller feature sizes use less power. Smaller capacitance, so the signals travel faster and generally speaking the design can be clocked higher.
* Yields: silicon wafers have regular manufacturing errors. A bigger die means more failed CPUs, grossly increasing prices. Smaller dies isolate those errors better, leading to better yields. Lets say there are around 20-errors per wafer. 100-chips per wafer would result in ~80is to 85ish successful chips per batch.
If you shrunk the die so that you had 500-chips per wafer, then you have 480-chips after manufacturing (20-defects).
Wafers are a constant size. Errors are relatively constant as well. You can't change those numbers.
* Power: Smaller feature sizes use less power. Smaller capacitance, so the signals travel faster and generally speaking the design can be clocked higher.