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Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist.\u00a0 Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.\u00a0 ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-24/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Luke James Social Links Navigation Contributor Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
unsnap 'Reverse engineering' it's alright to steal IP on the hardware side, but if anyone tried that with software, ohhhh! Reply
hotaru251 unsnap said: but if anyone tried that with software not true as there is a reason Pokemon Infinite Fusions and other fan pokemon games are allowed to exist and not attacked by nintendo lawyers. they reverse engineer the stuff and then remake it entirely differently which is legal. You get a product that looks similar on output but is entirely different under the hood. Most companies will do this. (its even 1 of reasons Noctua's 3d printable fans lack some details because they know people would do it) Reply
IntelUser2000 32.5nm pitch offers 10%^2 scaling over 36nm. Intel has said doing this buys roughly 10% higher density and looser front-side pitches, which is how a node built on GAA RibbonFET transistors and backside power can ship a wider local pitch than a DUV Chinese process and maintain a wide overall lead. SMIC reached 32.5nm without EUV lithography, leaning on DUV tools and quadruple-patterning that needs extra masking and etch passes Which means the above conclusion is false, and typical of tech journalists that don't know the article's content. There's no way PowerVia, which offers just 10% gain can have 38% advantages when the pitch alone should favor SMIC's process by 10%(1.2x for pitch vs 10% for PowerVia). The rest of the advantages are that Intel knows much better about optimization than SMIC does, so in reality they have a huge density advantage. Intel 7 has 80MT/mm2 density. That's not so far off from 110MT/mm2 for SMIC. Intel 4 is 120MT/mm2. Intel 3 is roughly 130MT/mm2 for HD variant as it's nearly identical to Intel 4, and it's essentially Intel 4 HD. 18A is further 30% dense. When the article says "38% behind", it means SMIC is 0.62x the density of Intel's 18A. Meaning 18A is 60% dense. The phrase "38% behind is misleading". Because if you take it to the extreme, you could say 99% behind, when in reality it means one is 100x the size. It would be more accurate to say 18A is 60% more dense. Intel's 18A is far, far ahead of SMIC in density, and likely performance too. 60% used to be less than one generation, but the generation after that, the 14A is only offering 30% from 18A, so it would need multiple generations just for SMIC to catch up to Intel. Reply
Pierce2623 Of course their core iffers similar per clock performance to the X2. It’s basically an x2 copy ported to SMIC (TSMC and Samsung were the only nodes that ARM “qualified for the X2). When the 7nm SMIC manufactured chips initially made the rounds, people who follow ARM development ( I‘m basically talking about cellphone emulation nerds and ARM based handheld emulation nerds) were well aware of that. In fact most believed ARM basically sold them the necessary IP to make a “custom” core that was virtually indistinguishable from an X2 because ARM’s core architecture IP simply isn’t covered by US export controls like process nodes are but ARM didn’t want it called an X2 when the available nodes in China meant that it simply wouldn’t have comparable raw performance to an X2. Reply
JRStern How's the yield with 7nm quad masking. Reply
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