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TSMC revealing details about next gen A14 node

129 points · 56 comments · osnium123

  1. aurareturn · · focus · HN ↗
    Chip density increase is slowing down. Since N10, density scaling has been 60-80%. N3 to N2 is only 20%. And now N2 to A14 is also only 20%.
    1. georgeburdell · · focus · HN ↗
      A lot of that is the lack of SRAM scaling. There’s still quite a bit of improvements in the back end (metal traces). That aside, if foundries adopted say a 1T-1C SRAM we’d see a pretty rapid density doubling
      1. HarHarVeryFunny · · focus · HN ↗
        The reality is often going to be much worse than TSMC's N2 -> A14 "mixed design" 20% density increase marketing spin.

        Apparently the N2 -> A14 density increase for logic is 23% (Tom's Hardware), and about 0% for both SRAM and analog.

        Both CPUs and GPUs devote considerable space to SRAM (registers & cache), and are 50% or less logic, so for them the density increase will be more like 10% rather than TSMC's 20% marketing number.

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