Waiting on 20nm graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD? Don’t bother.

techsoda.com ^ | March 8, 2014 | Jim Dotcom

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Billions of dollars are spent every year on shrinking the size of transistors, for good reason.

Smaller transistors have superior performance characteristics but the main reason for the shrink is because the smaller the transistors are, the more you can squeeze into a chip.  That means you can get better performance from smaller chips, allowing you to squeeze more chips on to the same wafer – and the more chips on a wafer, the more money you make per wafer.

Take this example of a 40nm wafer and a (more advanced) 28nm wafer:

The left wafer (40nm transistors) has chips of 150mm^2, 12.5mm each side.  The right wafer (28nm transistors)has chips of 100mm^2, 10mm each side.  The left wafer contains 376 chips and the right wafer contains 600 chips.

Even though the chips on the right wafer are smaller, each chip still performs better than a chip from the left wafer – because the smaller 28nm transistors means you can squeeze more into a smaller area.

So node shrinks bring more money and smaller, faster chips – while using less power than before…it’s just a win all round.  Simple, right?

Well it used to be.  As the limits of physics are pushed ever further, each new smaller “node” gets more and more complex to achieve – so costs continue to rise.  Intel currently leads the way with their 22nm (nanometre) process node, with TSMC  (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) not too far behind on 28nm.  Note that it’s a bit more complex than simply looking at the different sizes, ........

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[Jack Hydrazine]

“node shrinks”

Sounds like something out of psychology!
>snort!<

[ClearCase_guy]

[Jack Hydrazine]

George Costanza suffering from node shrinkage?

You don’t say!

[shibumi]

I prefer my transistors twisted.

[Zathras]

Everyone is having major problems 20nm and below.
Yea they can build them but yields are not good.

[DuncanWaring]

Ping.

[reg45]

As the size of the components gets smaller, the less time it takes for electrical signals to get through them. The signals travel at about 300 mm/ns.

[mowowie]

I’ve been waiting and waiting and finally Nvidia’s new cards have finally been released!
Hopefully i’ll have a brand new GTX 970 within the next couple of weeks.

I upgraded the rest of my PC early last summer and i have been waiting this video card purchase out.
I’ll be going from an ancient GTX 260 to the GTX 970 so you can understand why i’m a little exited...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And AMD is gonna do something it appears:

[UPDATE] AMD Might Be Announcing Next Generation Product on 25th September – Runs “No Pills Required” Marketing Campaign

The forums are talking about the Graphics cards WARS....Watch for even better stuff.

[SunTzuWu]

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