Published in PC Hardware

AMD to Use Bulk 40nm

by on22 April 2010

 

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Monolithic Fusion Chip for Netbooks on its way


AMD has
said that it has received the first samples of its second Fusion design code-named Ontario. Ontario is aimed at netbooks, tablets and other low-power devices and AMD seems to be betting the farm on the design.

Ontario uses two x86 cores based on Bobcat micro-architecture, integrated DirectX 11-class graphics core and DDR3 memory controller. However it is actually a single-chip system-on-chip (SoC) device. According to the documents seen by X-bit labs the Ontario accelerated processing unit will be made using bulk 40nm process technology. Ontario seems to use a monolithic design produced at bulk 40nm node.

Globalfoundries, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and United Microelectronics can make the beast. It is fairly unlikely AMD will want to give it to TSMC. Globalfoundries, where AMD still holds a stake along with seats in the board of directors, also has 40nm high-performance bulk process technology, however, it has not announced that anyone plans to use it. No one seems to be using UMC at the moment either.

Bobcat micro-architecture features x86-64, virtualisation, SSE, SSE2, SSE3 technologies and will be single-threaded with out-of-order execution. Ontario microprocessor, which is a dual-core chip, claims to be able to run 90 per cent of today’s “mainstream performance” in less than half of die area. AMD also claims that Bobcat-based products are sub-1W capable.
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