On the Nature of Things | Forum

As the process nodes shrink, it takes longer and longer for the cost-per-transistor to fall below the previous generation. At 20nm, the gains all-but vanish. Want to know why Nvidia rearchitected Fermi with a new emphasis on efficiency and performance/watt? You’re looking at the reason. If per-transistor costs remain constant, the only way to improve your cost structure is to make better use of the transistors you’ve got.
What this slide states — we can’t even call it a suggestion — is that smaller processes no longer improve yields by leading to a greater number of chips per wafer. Instead, the complexities and difficulties of manufacturing at the new process create a cost structure that provides precious little incentive to manufacture at the new process.

If openly criticizing a foundry partner is unusual, showing data that suggests that your foundry partner can’t provide a cost-effective strategy for building hardware at next-generation process nodes is… a few steps past that point. The recent launch of the GTX 680, and that card’s trifecta of price/performance/power-efficiency actually strengthens the impact of this data. NV would’ve had a good idea how the GK104 was shaping up when it spoke at ITPC in November; this isn’t a case where a company is angry about the performance of a particular part and looking for someone to blame.

The chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices said at a conference that advantages brought by the next-generation process technologies will get less noticeable than previously. As a result, AMD will need to transit to new technologies more wisely than before and attempt to innovate using proven fabrication processes.

"Now, let's talk about 20nm and 14nm. I think that we really flying hard in the path of subatomic environments. The price advantages as we move down nodes are starting to wane. The ability to [quickly improve] yields and ramp up our products (which have fixed amount of time) is under exceptional pressure. It costs huge amounts of money. I think we have to be strategic and think about how quickly we go down the node," said Rory Read, chief executive officer of AMD, during IT Supply Chain conference organized by Raymond James.Rory Read believes that the market of semiconductors will need to change drastically from what it is today. Even though AMD will inevitably adopt both 20nm and 14nm fabrication processes in the coming years, it will change its adoption approach and expects companies like Globalfoundries to change their pricing models so to make transitions to thinner processes viable for fabless designer of chips.

"Just go look at the cost of wafers as you move down those technologies, they are not going down, they are going up! If the yield does not go up, how do you get your return? You have to charge bigger prices. We will get there, we will move down [but ultimately there got to be different pricing model]," said the chief executive officer of AMD.

Ammianus wrote:...starts now.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/12 ... -worthless

As the process nodes shrink, it takes longer and longer for the cost-per-transistor to fall below the previous generation. At 20nm, the gains all-but vanish. Want to know why Nvidia rearchitected Fermi with a new emphasis on efficiency and performance/watt? You’re looking at the reason. If per-transistor costs remain constant, the only way to improve your cost structure is to make better use of the transistors you’ve got.
What this slide states — we can’t even call it a suggestion — is that smaller processes no longer improve yields by leading to a greater number of chips per wafer. Instead, the complexities and difficulties of manufacturing at the new process create a cost structure that provides precious little incentive to manufacture at the new process.

If openly criticizing a foundry partner is unusual, showing data that suggests that your foundry partner can’t provide a cost-effective strategy for building hardware at next-generation process nodes is… a few steps past that point. The recent launch of the GTX 680, and that card’s trifecta of price/performance/power-efficiency actually strengthens the impact of this data. NV would’ve had a good idea how the GK104 was shaping up when it spoke at ITPC in November; this isn’t a case where a company is angry about the performance of a particular part and looking for someone to blame.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... _Wane.html

The chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices said at a conference that advantages brought by the next-generation process technologies will get less noticeable than previously. As a result, AMD will need to transit to new technologies more wisely than before and attempt to innovate using proven fabrication processes.

"Now, let's talk about 20nm and 14nm. I think that we really flying hard in the path of subatomic environments. The price advantages as we move down nodes are starting to wane. The ability to [quickly improve] yields and ramp up our products (which have fixed amount of time) is under exceptional pressure. It costs huge amounts of money. I think we have to be strategic and think about how quickly we go down the node," said Rory Read, chief executive officer of AMD, during IT Supply Chain conference organized by Raymond James.Rory Read believes that the market of semiconductors will need to change drastically from what it is today. Even though AMD will inevitably adopt both 20nm and 14nm fabrication processes in the coming years, it will change its adoption approach and expects companies like Globalfoundries to change their pricing models so to make transitions to thinner processes viable for fabless designer of chips.

"Just go look at the cost of wafers as you move down those technologies, they are not going down, they are going up! If the yield does not go up, how do you get your return? You have to charge bigger prices. We will get there, we will move down [but ultimately there got to be different pricing model]," said the chief executive officer of AMD.

This phenomenon is not only limited only to AMD and Nvidia, but also TSMC, Globalfoundries, and Intel. And where the CPU/GPU trends go, so go the rest of technology. Ascension on their end lifts all boats in the tide. Stagnation or descension, on the other hand....

We have only started to explore graphene technology, while quantum computing is just beginning to be actively researched. Neither of them are remotely ready for the primetime.

Then you have labor costs in China. AKA rising and becoming ever so uncertain and unstable.

Take a good look around your daily tech, close your eyes, and remember them. They'll be virtually unchanged in the next 15-20 years. And if some incremental advanced parts happens to come along, be prepared to pay an arm, leg, and other sundry body parts for it. And the market won't be able to take that, at all

I think it's very, very likely all the big tech firms we're so familiar with like Intel, AMD, Microsoft, etc., a good number of them will simply not be with us at all, 10-12 years from now.

Ammianus wrote:...starts now.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/12 ... -worthless

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... _Wane.html

Take a good look around your daily tech, close your eyes, and remember them. They'll be virtually unchanged in the next 15-20 years. And if some incremental advanced parts happens to come along, be prepared to pay an arm, leg, and other sundry body parts for it. And the market won't be able to take that, at all

I think it's very, very likely all the big tech firms we're so familiar with like Intel, AMD, Microsoft, etc., a good number of them will simply not be with us at all, 10-12 years from now.