Daily Tech News 30 June 2022

• TSMC to customers: Get with the program and move to 28nm already. (AnandTech)
  
  Compared to the new hotness (see below) 28nm is old school and almost old hat, but it works, and it works the same as older processes. It's the last robust process with planar transistors rather than FinFETs, so designs are relatively easy to move.
  
  There is also a 20nm planar node, but it sucks. AMD never used it, for example, despite being stuck on 28nm for years.
  
  
  
• Samsung meanwhile has started production at 3nm. (ZDNet)
  
  The main advantage of Samsung's 3nm and their new GAAFET transistors is that they cut power consumption by nearly half. They also reportedly offer up to 20% better performance but the way that number is measured makes its utility dubious. You need the chart plotting frequencies against power consumption and the details of the sample circuit being evaluated.

• The Raspberry Pi Pico W is the Raspberry Pi Pico with added W. (RaspberryPi)
  
  The W stands for 802.11n - WiFi.
  
  The article also notes that the Pi Pico chip is made on TSMC's 40nm process, so: Get with the program.
  
  
  
• Retail prices for Threadripper Pro 5000 have been announced and ouch. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 24 core Threadripper 3960X cost $1399. The 24 core Threadripper Pro 5965WX costs $2399 - and will only be 20% faster than the 7950X when that chip arrives in September.
  
  AMD is the only game in town for workstation chips, really, and they're setting prices to match.

posted by Pixy Misa at 05:49 AM

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