Interesting article was posted on NVIDIA Blog. A leader of the engineering team that helped TSMC in manufacturing first 28nm graphics chip explains how complicated was this development process.
Joe Greco — an author of this article — compares designing first NVIDIA 28nm chip to designing a new jet engine with a materials which are still in development. He explains how new technologies helped to increase performance per watt of this new chip.
TSMC offered NVIDIA new optimized process technology — 28nm high performance process — which used both the first-generation high-K HKMB process and second generation SiGe (Silicon Germanium). He also explains how big of an impact were those new technologies to performance:
Using TSMC’s 28nm HP (high performance) process enabled us to reduce active power by about 15 percent and leakage by about 50 percent compared to 40nm, resulting in an overall improvement in power efficiency of about 35 percent (see chart). Let me explain why this is so critical.
Take a moment for reading this detailed article.
- READ MORE (Source): The Impact of Process Technology on Kepler’s Efficiency « NVIDIA
