AMD's internal guidance suggests the company isn't very far from 45nm at all
Late last year, AMD executives alluded to a 45nm successor
to the Barcelona core, dubbed Shanghai. AMD's Senior Vice President, Marty Seyer, claimed Shanghai
would specifically "bring further performance enhancements, as well as
cache efficiency."
Shanghai is apparently more than just a cache-bump. AMD's
documentation explicitly claims Shanghai will be the company's first
45nm processor. However, with a die shrink additional cache is one of the
immediate architecture options as the smaller node allows for more transistors
to fit on the chip die. Shanghai features 6MB of L3 cache.
Barcelona, the 65nm quad-core next-generation Opteron from AMD, is expected to
launch this summer with 2MB of L3 cache. L3 cache on the K10 architecture
is shared over all four cores, yet each core has an independent L2 cache as
well. More details on how this new cache operation works was detailed in June 2006 on DailyTech.
All other features found on Barcelona will also make an appearance on Shanghai:
AMD-Virtualization (previously codenamed Presido), RDDR2, and
HyperTransport 3.0. Like Barcelona, Shanghai will also tentatively
ship with dual and quad-core variants. In 2008 AMD will tennatively add Secure Initialization to all its AMD-V platforms, including Shanghai.
Shanghai will also use the Socket 1207 interface, suggesting existing
motherboards will have the opportunity to upgrade to Shanghai processors -- AMD
processors are typically designed to work with existing motherboards on
same-socket interfaces with simple BIOS updates.
AMD and IBM recently announced intentions to pursue the
45nm node with high-k metal gate technology. Intel disclosed similar
process technology information one day prior to the IBM-AMD
announcement. Late last year IBM detailed its plans for utilizing immersion
lithography for its 45nm test shuttles -- Intel uses the same process as
well.
In a recent interview with Reuters, AMD senior vice president of technology development Douglas Grose claimed "We'll be producing early products probably in Q2 of 2008, with full production in the second half." However, Grose also claims the company is still anticipating whether or not it will use high-k metal gate technology in later 45nm revisions or if the company will wait until 32nm.
IBM will certainly play an integral role in any 45nm plans for AMD, though
production on the 45nm node ramp is not something AMD has discussed at
length. AMD's first 65nm processors just hit store shelves a
few weeks ago.
Intel's 45nm processor, codenamed Penryn, has already been
taped-out. Intel guidance suggests the processor will be available to the channel
in Q1 2008.
AMD's Barcelona was previously labeled the K8L architecture by AMD President Henri
Richard in March 2006. Late last year, AMD executives began using the name K10 instead, while internally the platform is labeled Greyhound. On paper, Shanghai appears to be architecturally
identical to Barcelona, but utilizes the smaller node.
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