Intel has just reported on its fourth quarter earnings earlier today (22nd January 2021). In the report, the company noted a strong quarter and a record year, while also promising an update on its 7nm process.

The known chip maker stated that it has apparently fixed its 7nm process but still plans on outsourcing some plans, as per a TomsHardware report. Intel is planning to contract out the production of some of its leading edge products. Previously, we had reported on team blue outsourcing the production of its Core i3 processors to TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker. Furthermore, Intel’s upcoming CEO Pat Gelsinger added that he has personally reviewed the progress of the updated 7nm process.

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The senior executive said that he was pleased with the “health and recovery of the 7nm program.” He further added that Intel will be using external foundries for some of its products. The upcoming CEO is also confident that the majority of the company’s 2023 CPU products will mostly be from its own factories. Further plans regarding production will be unveiled at a later date, after Gelsinger takes the lead in February 2021.

Notably, Intel has also noted great performance in its mobile chips that are found in laptops. Thanks to affordable notebooks, the company’s PC business saw a significant rise of 33 percent year on year in the fourth quarter of last year. During this time, the average price of notebooks dropped by 15 percent, which further helped boost the sales of laptops with Intel chips, as per an Engadget report. The bump in sales was also backed by the pandemic that made remote working and online education the new norm as well.

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The Snapdragon 700 series is Qualcomm‘s line of upper mid-range chipsets. The series includes the 10nm Snapdragon 710 and Snapdragon 712 SoCs; and the 8nm Snapdragon 730 and Snapdragon 730G SoCs. A new leak has revealed Qualcomm is developing a 7nm chipset that will be commercially known as the Snapdragon 735.

The Snapdragon 735 will be a 7nm chipset like the Snapdragon 855 which means power efficiency will be greater than the 8nm Snapdragon 730 duo. The sdm735 will be an octa-core processor with a 1 + 1 + 6 CPU cluster. It will have one unspecified Kryo 400 series core clocked at 2.9GHz paired with another Kryo 400 series clocked at 2.4GHz and six Kryo 400 series clocked at 1.8GHz.

The mobile platform will have an Adreno 620 GPU clocked at 750MHz with support for QHD (3360 X 1440) displays with a wide color gamut and HDR10/HDR10+. The SoC will also support up to 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM.

The Snapdragon 735 will have a Spectra 350 ISP just like the Snapdragon 730 that supports up to 32MP 30fps ZSL. There is also a new NPU220 for AI tasks clocked at 1GHz.

The processor will not only be a 7nm chipset like the Snapdragon 855 but also have an integrated 5G modem which means mid-range 5G phones are on the way. It will also support UFS 2.1, eMMC 5.1, and USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type C.

READ MORE: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset could support LPDDR5 RAM

There is no info on when the chipset will be announced but it could be unveiled this year and start showing up in devices in 2020.

(Source)

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The race for the 7nm chip is on and it appears Huawei may be the first to announce a chipset based on the new process and also the first to have it in a phone.

Latest reports say that Huawei will begin mass production of the Kirin 980 chipset this quarter. The 7nm chipset will be manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC).

We still do not know the configuration of the mobile processor but we have a few guesses. We believe the Kirin 980 will still have a dedicated but improved NPU. We also expect it to appear first in the Huawei Mate 20 and then the next P-series phone for 2019.

READ MORE: Huawei Tops China’s Smartphone Market, Xiaomi Steadily Increases

There are also reports the  Kirin 980 will have Cortex-A75 cores alongside a much more powerful GPU. It should also bring Bluetooth 5.0 to Huawei phones.

(Source)

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Qualcomm’s current top chip is the Snapdragon 845 and like the one before it, the Snapdragon 835, it is also built on a 10nm process. While Qualcomm itself hasn’t confirmed if its next flagship chip will be a 7nm chip, a new leak has revealed it will be.

The leak comes as a sort of job description of one of the contractors working on the chipset and it reveals that Qualcomm’s next chip is the Snapdragon 855 which is built on the 7nm process. The leak was shared by Roland Quandt (@rquandt) on Twitter.

Qualcomm won't say it, but their contractors do. Snapdragon 855 (SDM855) is the first 7nm SoC. (probably the one the X24 modem ends up in) pic.twitter.com/Ot1J34fQoG

— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) February 15, 2018

Samsung is the one handling production for the Snapdragon 845 but there are rumors that the SDM855 will be manufactured by TSMC.

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Qualcomm announced two new modems yesterday for 2019 – the X24 and the X50. The X24 is the first confirmed 7nm chip with up to 2Gbps LTE speeds. Chances are the manufacturer building the X24 will also build the Snapdragon 855.

(Source)

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Huawei just announced the Kirin 970 flagship processor and it is yet to even feature in a smartphone but rumors of a Kirin 980 processor has already started. No doubt, the Kirin 970 will likely be succeeded by the Kirin 980 but that wouldn’t happen until around this same time next year. 

Nevertheless, a few details of the next-gen chip has surfaced on Weibo. The most spectacular is that the Kirin 980 will be built on a 7nm manufacturing process. and would have the Cortex-A75 architecture. The chip will be manufactured by TSMC and the release time will be based on TSMC’s ability to mass produce the chip on time.  Also, the next-gen chip is tipped to come with some improvements in the GPU which is that it may feature Huawei’s self-researched GPU. The Kirin 980 will also likely come with artificial intelligence as well.

Read More: Huawei Unveils The Kirin 970, The World’s First Processor With A Dedicated NPU

Also, the Kirin 980 is rumoured to be used first on the Huawei P20, surprised? Sure, we have the P10 presently but instead of heading to P11, Huawei is rumoured to use P20 as the name of its next P-series flagship phone. Huawei is said to have registered a trademark for the name long ago. If this is anything to go by, it means we may likely see the Kirin 980 earlier than usual because the next P-series smartphone will likely be launched early next year, perhaps in the second quarter. However, it is still too early to conclude on this when there are loads of leaks on the way ahead before the chip is announced.

(source)

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IBM has announced that it has achieved a major breakthrough in the development of a process to build silicon nanosheet transistor which would enable the manufacture of 5nm chips. The process which is an industry first was developed in collaboration with its research alliance partners Global Foundries and Samsung. Although details of the process employed in the manufacture are yet to be revealed, it won’t be long before we’ll get to find that out. IBM will unveil the process at te 2017 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits Conference in Kyoto, Japan.

When the 7nm node manufacturing process capable of housing 20billion transistors was developed less that two years ago, it would ordinarily have been thought to be a revolutionary process. We are yet to even see a processor built on the 7nm process and now we have a 5nm chip which would enable even more transistors (up to 30 billion switches) on a smaller silicon wafer. The new chip is just about the size of a fingernail. When also compared to the 10nm which is the leading edge technology presently available in the market, the 5nm technology is capable of delivering 40 percent performance enhancement at fixed power, or 75 percent power savings at matched performance.

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More transistors will translate to an increase in performance which would help accelerate cognitive computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality, AI systems and other data-intensive applications delivered in the cloud. The chips would also be able to manage power up to two to three times more efficiently. This power savings property means smartphones’ batteries and those of other mobile products could last two to three times longer than the models availabe presently, before needing to be charged.

The research team achieved the breakthrough by using stacks of silicon nanosheets as the device structure of the transistor, instead of the standard FinFET architecture, which is the blueprint for the semiconductor industry up through 7nm node technology. It is not known when this technological breakthrough will reach the point where it can be commercialised as it has only been shown to be possible. We are yet to even see smartphones with chips built on the 7nm process. However, IBM thinks its commercialization is not too far off in the future.

(source)

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Qualcomm‘s latest flagship processor has just made its maiden voyage onboard the Samsung Galaxy S8, Sony Xperia XZ and Xiaomi Mi 6. The flagship Snapdragon 835 is expected on more smartphones but before that can even happen, there are rumours already that Qualcomm is already workin on a next generation flagship chip.

The next generation Qualcomm chip is said to go by the name Snapdragon 845 and was being developed in collaboration with Samsung for the Galaxy S9, just like what played out on the Galaxy S8. Further details have now emerged that the Snapdragon 845 may actually be built on a 7nm wafer. According to reports from Taiwan, TSMC has started developing a 7nm process and trial production began in April. The report also reveals that full fledge production may actually commence next year. Thus, the Apple iPhone 8, expected later this year is ruled out of having a 7nm chip.

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TSMC gets patronage from up to30 different chip makers includingvQualcomm, MediaTek, Apple, Huawei and others. The report alleges that more than half of the 30 TSMC customers plan to use the 7nm process to create a high-performance chip. TSMC had earlier disclosed that the 7nm process increases performance over the 10nm by 25% – 35% and about 95% of the components on a 10nm chip can fit into a smaller 7nm chip. So, we’re looking at a more.  TSMC’s Chairman had disclosed that Samsung is the only chipmaker competing with TSMC in the race to commercialise the 7nm process. We can’t say if Qualcomm will pitch its tent with Samsung again as it did for the Snapdragon 835 or go with TSMC on this one.

(via)

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