AMD Arctic Islands GPUs may employ 14nm FinFET tech

[HEXUS]

20nm GPU fabrication plans are not being considered, say various sources.

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[kalniel]

This sounds to me like: TSMC have messed up a whole bunch of nodes so everyone who's had to stay with 28nm is jumping to 14nm where they can buy from Samsung if they need to.

[Corky34]

Not sure they messed up the nodes as making 20nm isn't a technical problem, it's more a costs problem.
Advanced Substrate News has a nice article on the costs involved.

[kalniel]

Not sure they messed up the nodes as making 20nm isn't a technical problem, it's more a costs problem.
Advanced Substrate News has a nice article on the costs involved.

But according to that article, you wouldn't go to 14nm FinFET either, as that's EVEN more expensive.

It seems some people are not at all happy with the 20nm products (eg qualcomm) despite them having been costed.

[Corky34]

I'm not going to pretend to know the pro's and con's of FinFET vs FD-SOI when it comes to GPU design so I hope this article on PCPer from 2013 may help answer why there possibly going for FinFET.

[Hicks12]

This sounds to me like: TSMC have messed up a whole bunch of nodes so everyone who's had to stay with 28nm is jumping to 14nm where they can buy from Samsung if they need to.

Believe you're spot on Kalniel, as 20nm has been a serious issue for GPU manufactures as TSMC have been unable to supply the demand (both in yield and time) it seems people are just skipping 20nm all together which is a good call in my opinion as it allows the next GPU generation to provide far greater efficiency while being similar in cost to 20nm (in terms of actually getting up and running with suitable yields).

In particular of AMD I believe this jump is valid as the 14nm FinFET is a collaboration between Samsung and GlobalFoundries so I presume AMD would have been able to get some preferential treatment from GF for a change, also the track record between GF and Samsung is much stronger than TSMC of late.

GPUs next year could be very interesting!

[Nobull]

Does that not just make you want to hold off on this year's cards though?! My 6950 is showing its age, but I don't want to spend a load on something that will so quickly be massively usurped.

[abaxas]

Does that not just make you want to hold off on this year's cards though?! My 6950 is showing its age, but I don't want to spend a load on something that will so quickly be massively usurped.

Ermm, that tends to be the world of computers. Just avoid the top end and you'll be fine.

[kalniel]

Does that not just make you want to hold off on this year's cards though?!

Always. Welcome to the PC world.

PS there's even better coming after 14nm FinFET too

[will19565]

if AMD make a GPU that matches Nvidia on power, performance and heat then i will be buying a AMD GPU, if they don't well...

[Nobull]

Ermm, that tends to be the world of computers. Just avoid the top end and you'll be fine.

Always. Welcome to the PC world.

PS there's even better coming after 14nm FinFET too

Well I am aware of that, but this is a bit different. I think the last two generations of GPUs have seen pretty incremental increases. Hence why my 6950 has done pretty good service. Such a big shrink (if that isn't too much of an oxymoron) combined with HBM2 seems like it could be a real game-changer. You could not describe either the 7000 series or the 200 series (or their Nvidia counterparts) as that IMO.