Re:Chipmaking Is Being Redesigned
by jjoonathan on Friday January 22, 2021 @05:56PM
(#25877337)
I love the idea of having that information readily available, but I don't think it will ever be a banner spec. Three numbers is two too many and who wants "density" when you can have "MEGATRANSISTORS"? I know, I know, but marketing is what it is and I think it's better to lean into it.
Re:Chipmaking Is Being Redesigned
by acidbaseextract on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:05PM
(#25877423)
Of course, and I agree that marketing traction matters. I should have said this is an idle hope that some of these fancier metrics get published/leaked about TSMC/Samsung/Intel processes rather than that they become the metric. I do think MT/mm^2 or whatever is a strong candidate to become the thing. "megatransistors" is an exciting word.
>> "megatransistors" is an exciting word.
Not as cool as megaFonzies.
So is that going to be M as 1000^2 or M as 1024^2.
(still bitter about the whole GB vs GiB think caused by marketing people)
Improved semiconductor device density directly translates into benefits for more advanced computing systems— the primary driver for progress in semiconductor technology. Thus, we propose the use of the following three-part number as a metric to gauge advancement of future semiconductor technologies: [DL, DM , DC ], where DL is the density of logic transistors (in #/mm2), DM is the bit density of main memory (currently the off-chip DRAM density, in #/mm2), and DC is the density of connections between the main memory and logic (in #/mm2). As an example, today’s leading edge technologies that are published in the literature [15]–[17] can be characterized by [38M, 383M, 12K]. As another example, 3-D stacking of multiple logic and memory dies can increase DL, DM, and DC .