AMD Announces Zen 4 Microarchitecture Under Development
by Anton Shilov on November 6, 2018 12:54 PM EST
At its Next Horizon event in San Francisco, AMD announced the fourth iteration of its Zen microarchitecture. The Zen 4 is currently in development, so the company does not share many details about it right now.
Right now, the company is sampling its codenamed Rome CPUs based on Zen 2 microarchitecture and made using TSMC’s first-generation 7 nm manufacturing technology (N7). After that, AMD plans to release a processor based on its Zen 3 architecture and these chips will be made using TSMC’s N7+ fabrication process that will take advantage of EUV lithography. Since Zen 4 microarchitecture is still in design phase, chances are that processors on its base will be made using a more advanced node, so think 5 nm, but keep in mind that any guesses today are speculations at best.
At its event AMD implied that the first CPUs based on its Zen 3 microarchitecture will ship in 2020, so it is natural to expect Zen 4 to reach actual products in 2021 or later. As for what to expect from the new microarchitecture, the company naturally promised higher performance and performance per watt when compared to prior generations.
Previously AMD has only discussed Zen 2 and Zen 3 microarchitectures, yet it is not surprising that the company will keep evolving its successful design in the coming years.
This is a breaking news. We are updating the news story with more details.
Related Reading:
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- AMD Updates its 25x20 Goal: Progress in a Generation
- AMD Ryzen 2nd Gen Details: Four CPUs, Pre-Order Today, Reviews on the 19th
- AMD Tech Day at CES: 2018 Roadmap Revealed, with Ryzen APUs, Zen+ on 12nm, Vega on 7nm
Source: AMD
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Hul8 - Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - link
I recall AMD in multiple instances refrerring to 7 nm as a long-term node, so it wouldn't surprise me if they skipped 5 nm, or only got into it late for some niche products, and concentrated on a full-node shrink to something like 3 nm instead. 2 years of 7 nm just doesn't sound "long-term" enough for me.Opencg - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
3nm will probably not come until 20-30 years from now if it even comes at allnandnandnand - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Not true:https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=133097...
Samus - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
1nm, sure, but certainly not 3nm. That's <5 years out.PixyMisa - Saturday, November 10, 2018 - link
Real 3nm is unlikely, but marketing 3nm is on track for 2022.Tvegas1980 - Thursday, May 23, 2019 - link
There was an article that was talking about picometer node which is a lot smaller than nanometers so 1 nm is not impossible.Dramaking - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
If the semiconductor industry does produce < 5 nm process nodes, they will need to transition away from silicon. After GlobalFoundries canceled development of 7 nm, I feel like a lot is up in the air now.FreckledTrout - Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - link
So it sounds like Zen 3 will mostly be a change to TSMC’s N7+ process which is likely a mild improvement or in prior Intel marking its the tick and Zen 4 would be the tock.nandnandnand - Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - link
If I'm not mistaken, Zen 2 is a 25% improvement (IPC combined with higher clock rates) before accounting for any additional cores.No performance increase is indicated for N7+, but it will probably be better than nothing, and a good breather like 12nm Zen+:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13445/tsmc-first-7n...
Santoval - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Zen 3 will basically be Zen 2+, i.e. an optimization of the same design with a slightly better node, just like Zen+ was for the original Zen. Zen 4 will be a new design.