AMD ready for 65nm

[Steve]

A story over at The Inquirer reports that AMD is ready to open its Fab 36 extension at its Dresden facility next month, and that it'll be gearing up for 65nm part production.

Production of 65 nanometre silicon will start in 2006, the firm said. That's also when Intel will start throwing out 65 nanometre chips. We'd expect AMD to be a little behind Intel producing the shrink, but both companies appear to be engaged in a 21st century version of "Beat the Clock". So it will be interesting to see whether there is a lag, and if so what the lag is.

If memory serves, AMD were also behind Intel with the shrink to 90nm, but where AMD prospered was in performing a fairly straight forward die shrink, without adding new features, whereas Intel piled more stuff into their chips. This meant Intel's chips ran toasty, and AMD could wait until their 2nd set of 90nm parts before adding new gadgetry.

[Dougal]

Glad to see AMD are making big headway now.

I kinda get the impression that the slowdown may have been caused by AMD employees ensuring they had a good case against Intel.

[Jonny]

So what realistic effect will we notice from the new 65nm manuafacturing process?

[Dougal]

Smaller dies mean less heat output and the ability to put more transitors on a core.

< Heat

> power

[Dihi Doctor]

If it's anything like last time, though, we'll get something like
>power
>>heat
from intel