Third gen Bulldozer comes in at 28nm

We have acquired documents that reveal AMD’s server plans up into 2013. We know that next year the successor to Bulldozer, Komodo, will be released with up to 10 cores and a fully integrated northbridge. The year after AMD will introduce two whole new sockets for servers along with the third generation Bulldozer at 28nm.

AMD hasn’t launched the Bulldozer architecture at 32nm with up to 8 cores, but coming September/October it finally seems to happen. The year after Komodo will follow with up to 10 cores, integrated northbridge and a new socket; FM2. On the server market Sepang is the equivalency of Komodo and brings the same functions and up to three memory channels. Terramer will be the processor that connects two dies to make a 20-core processor.

In 2013 the third generation Bulldozer will appear. Macau comes with 10 cores while Dublin gets 20 cores just like Sepang and Dublin. We can also expect further improvements to the architecture and lower power consumption.

What may surprise is that Dublin and Macau will be made at 28nm. AMD has since 130nm built all of its processors on SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator) and there are no plans at GlobalFoundries to bring forth a 28nm SOI process. The node will then be, most likely, 28nm-HPP (High Performance Plus) Bulk/HKMG Gate-First at GlobalFoundries. While a move from 32nm to 28nm may not sound that large 28nm should bring around 24% higher transistor density.

The question is if the advantages AMD has mentioned with SOI will disappear and will be hard to master at lower nodes, or if there are other motives. GlobalFoundries and AMD also has a 22nm SOI/HKMG process on paper, but this is nothing that is being mentioned here.

It could be that AMD has chosen to use a more generic node than a tailored version? One guess is that it chooses to make its CPUs and GPUs with the same process to make it easier to combine the two into an APU, like Brazos and Llano.

No matter the reason it intends to hold up the Velocity strategy that will bring a new CPU, GPU and APU architecture every year.

Source: Dokument via MyDrivers