Published in PC Hardware

AMD 7nm server plans detailed

by on24 May 2017


Zen 2 aka Rome aka Starship 7nm

In June 2016 Fudzilla exclusively wrote that AMD will do a 7nm follow up architecture for its data center / server. It may have taken its time, but AMD confirmed this last week. 

The part - codenamed Starship - uses one of the place holder names for  an enterprise part. AMD is now using the codename Rome for 7nm its Zen 2 based server X86 CPU. We mentioned that this was a late 2018 7nm product,  and AMD confirmed that it would be 7nm it just did not mention the date. 

The late 2018 date was the timeframe that AMD was telling its customers a few quarters ago and what GlobalFoundries told us in its press announcement about 7nm. AMD cannot manufacture the CPU before the fab is ready.

You can never be certain about these schedules. Intel was supposed to launch 10nm quite a few quarters ago, but the technology transition was much harder than in the last few years. Decades of experience teach us that late 2018 can easily mean even later than that.

epyc7nm

The AMD Zen 2 architecture Starship CPU is probably what AMD calls Rome.  It  is based on Zen 2 architecture and could end up having as many as 48 cores with 96 threads.  This is a flexible architecture and you will see varieties between 35 and 180W TDP to fit most needs. Starship (Rome) with 35W TDP will have much less than the maximum 48 cores.

Intel still has to announce its 10nm server plans, let alone 7nm. We will hopefully get an update on that during the course of 2017.

AMD Naples, a 32 core with 64 threads is now called Epyc, and this is the name that will replace the once glorious Opteron series. AMD has a single digit market share in servers / data center right now that is probably closer to one percent of the total market but it hopes to gain some share with the Epyc.  

Just as Naples / Epyc represents the 14nm Zen based family of server SoCs, you can expect the same scenario from Rome / Starship in 7nm. It is too early to talk about Milan, that CPU is still years away but it is under development. 

Last modified on 24 May 2017
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