AMD’s Southern Islands tapes out
Birds bring news of new GPUs
Mar 29, 2011 in Chips, Desktop, Gaming, Graphics, Rumors
Spring is here and the birds are flying north from their winter hiding spots, and they bring with them news from the Southern Islands. With the migration CIrcle complete, the words from the birds is that the new AMD (NYSE: AMD ) GPU family taped out a while ago.
The SI tapeout happened in in February, more likely earlier than later, so lets call it 6 weeks ago. For those doing the math, both of the last two generations, Evergreen and Northern Islands, taped out later in the calendar year, and the resultant chips were launched in late Q3 or early Q4.
The SI/7xxx cards are a tweaked, more effiCIent, and polished Cayman/69xx design, so they should be pretty low risk, and the spins will be minimal. If all goes really well, think 6 weeks from mid-February, or about now, for silicon to come back from the fab, then 2 weeks for testing, and 3 months for production wafers to start popping up. That would put delivery of cards to users in late July with time to spare, add 6 weeks for a possible, even likely respin, and late August is the outer bound. Since this is a pretty low risk part, we don’t expect there to be many huge difficulties with the design.
That is not to say there isn’t a huge problem lurking, and that problem is TSMC’s 28nm HKMG process. The first Southern Islands parts will be done at TSMC, with some of the later ones moving to Global Foundries if all goes well there. From what we understand, GloFo is quite a bit ahead of delivering products even if the roadmaps are neck and neck. Given TSMC’s track record at 40nm, 32nm, and shuffling of 28nm from gate first to gate last late in the game, most observers don’t think the promised timelines will be adhered to.
Edit: Had gate first and gate last swapped. Sorry.
So where does that leave AMD and Southern Islands? In limbo really, the company will the semiconductor equivalent of all dressed up and no where to go. They will have the designs done, masks made, test chips tested, and likely no volume process to run them on. Release for both this chip and likely Nvidia’s Kepler will be dictated by when the fab can deliver production capaCIty 28nm wafers, not the design itself.
When will you see Southern Islands parts? Short story, some time between July 2011 and the following July 2012, depending on when TSMC delivers. The offiCIal word is still, well, nothing yet, but when there is, delve into the details before you queue up for the impending launch. Props to CIpher.S|A
29 Responses to “AMD’s Southern Islands tapes out”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
-
-
Jul 7, 2011
[...] premier prototype fonctionnel (tape-out) d’AMD serait sorti d’usine dès février, alors que celui de Nvidia viendrait de le faire, à la toute fin [...]
-
-
May 13, 2011
[...] on next generation of AMD graphics processors, codename Southern Islands, was recently published by SemiAccurate web-site. According to the source, Sunnyvale based company had begun producing first GPUs for AMD [...]
-
-
Apr 16, 2011
[...] no word on the specifications of the new GPUs yet, but previous rumours have stated that they will be fabricated using TSMC’s 28nm [...]
-
-
Apr 1, 2011
[...] naujienų apie naująją AMD Southern Islands šeimos vaizdo plokščių „kolekciją“. Kaip pranešė SemiAccurate, kompanija AMD perdavė jos grafinės produkcijos gamyba užsiimančiai TSMC [...]
-
-
Mar 31, 2011
[...] tidbit for AMD Southern Island's/7000: AMD’s Southern Islands tapes out | SemiAccurate [...]
-
-
Mar 31, 2011
[...] [...]
-
-
Mar 30, 2011
[...] [...]
-
-
Mar 30, 2011
[...] [...]
-
-
Mar 30, 2011
[...] [...]
-
-
Mar 29, 2011
[...] [...]
It never ends… Isn’t that the point? Progressing technology etc? Or would you like a stone to run your games with
HD69xx turned out fine
From what I understand SI is not a new arch, just a die shrink.
I think they tend to avoid doing both a new arch and die shrink in one go, in order to minimise issues
Die shrink first, then new arch second
I’m sure there will be optimisations to the current arch though. More geared towards DX11 probably
@mejobloggs
I was commenting on the confusing names, not the ever forward march of performance.
Nor did I mean to imply 69xx has anything wrong with it. Merely noting that 69xx as finally released was not entirely what was originally envisioned… it was supposed to be 32 nM (or 28?) thus lower power consumption and/or higher clocks than 40nM product.
NI & SI through the past couple of years have been much misunderstood terms – I still find them confusing.
OMG it never ends.
Is Southern Islands the thing that the HD69xx was supposed to be but did not turn out? Is SI a new arch? Is SI just a die shrink of NI?
Intel has confusing CPU names… but AMD topped Intel with these GPU names.
“From what we understand, GloFo is quite a bit ahead of delivering products even if the roadmaps are neck and neck.”
What exactly do you mean by this? Is GloFlo ahead of TSMC or behind?
Unlikely in the short term, as it would probably require substantial redesign to go from a gate-last to a gate-first design.
Don’t hold your breath. I would say the speculated July 2012 date is more on target then the July 2011 date.
How do I know this? Lets say I work in a sector of the industry.. and I have not seen hide nor hair of any new GPU coming out of AMD. And I see signs of them about 6-9 months before they will ever hit the market. So… I would say you will see 7xxx series later then sooner.
I thik it would be a wise move to switch fabs to GloFo, they more than likely are already working very closely with AMD and should be able to give the exactly what they want.
At least the 28nm tech will get tested practically. Best case scenario I’d say we’ll see new high end GFx in January next year and worst case in the summer next year.
TSMC had more time then usual to perfect the 28nm process so it shouldn’t be a fail.
Also, we should keep an eye on what GlFo is doing.
Central Islip, New York
Cayman Islands
Cocos Island, off the Republic of Costa Rica
Coney Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an external territory of Australia
Christmas Island, an external territory of Australia
Kiritimati, another island by the name of “Christmas Island” in the Pacific Ocean
Channel Islands
Take your pick here. :p
You forgot one:
Confidential Informant.
No man is an island.
How about The isle of Man?
I am an island. I’m bloody Ibiza.
So Central Islands is the next family then?
Don’t get it? CI = 101 in Roman Numerals?
I think of CI as CodeIgniter, the PHP framework I use.
“effiCIent”, “offiCIal” and props to CIpher, eh?
Nice :-) That means it will fall right into the same timegap as Bulldozer, won’t it?
That means Bulldozer 6xxx and 7950Cf this autumn. Maybe another SSd for raid 0. Can’t wait :)