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Combining a new production process with a high-volume new processor architecture is a bit of a gamble, but it looks like it might be paying off with the upcoming AMD Ryzen 3000 series CPUs as early yields are looking good. An anonymous source is stating that AMD's 7nm processor yields are sitting around the 70% mark, and at this stage in production that's actually a pretty good figure.
The chip yield is one of the most important metrics in terms of silicon production. If your manufacturing process is delivering high yields that means a greater percentage of the chips on an individual wafer are deemed functional. There will always be defects in such precise manufacturing, so some of the chips on any given wafer will be dead on arrival, but however much you cut that down increases your profitability.
[...]
The reported 70% yield comes from a previously reliable, but unnamed, source talking to Bitsandchips in Italy (via Guru3D). It also goes on to point out that Intel's current 28-core 14nm CPU yield is hovering around the 35% mark and, given that AMD's design is working from eight-core chiplets, it's a lot easier to manufacture eight chiplets than a single, monolithic 64-core die.
So 35% yield versus 70% yield on both Intel and AMD's most expensive professional server parts respectively. Guess who's going to be just printing dollars with those numbers...
https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/zen-2-ryzen-3000-cpu-yield-70-percent
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:17AM (8 children)
Intel has a near monopoly on x86 CPU chips. But there are many more ARM chips. Including in some laptops [theverge.com].
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @06:30AM (3 children)
There is ONE SINGLE manufacturer of Arm chips for laptops. And that is because Microsoft decided thus, they are completely incapable of dealing with a market where there is more than 1 company. So they pick a winner and bet on it 100%.
Of course since that picked winner then has a monopoly, these systems have 0 chance of competing on price, or much else really.
And then Microsoft is surprised again that they lose the market (like they did for mobile), when it was them themselves that forced all competitiveness out of their side by refusing to even talk with more than a single vendor. Because it's too hard.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Thursday April 25 2019, @06:57AM (2 children)
http://www.rock-chips.com/subject/op1-rk3399.html [rock-chips.com]
https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/01/31/pinebook-pro-linux-bsd-rk3399-laptop/ [cnx-software.com]
https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/22/14691396/google-chromebook-arm-laptop-op1-processor-apptop [theverge.com]
In addition to Rockhip OP1, there have also been laptops with MediaTek M8173C, and NVIDIA Tegra K1 CD570M-A1.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 27 2019, @05:34AM (1 child)
Yeah, right. I didn't count Chromebooks under the "laptop" label. They are great for some, but not general purpose laptops. Functionality wise those are tablets in a different form factor.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 27 2019, @06:57AM
Slap full Linux on it and you've got a laptop by your definition.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @10:20AM (3 children)
Arm chips are good... for toys and gadgets, but not for serious computing.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday April 25 2019, @02:45PM
There are ARM server chips. Or you could look at Apple's ARM chips, which are typically the best in the industry and will probably converge with laptop performance before long. Maybe really soon if Apple follows through on ditching Intel and switching to ARM (a high performance version made by Apple) in their laptops.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:26PM (1 child)
POWER9 options are available today for Serious Computing™.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:27PM
Only for serious pockets though.