Thoughts on software-defined silicon [LWN.net]

Thoughts on software-defined silicon

Posted Feb 19, 2022 13:45 UTC (Sat) by atnot (guest, #124910)
In reply to: Thoughts on software-defined silicon by jhoblitt
Parent article: Thoughts on software-defined silicon

This is what chip manufacturers always point to, however from people in the industry the reality is that especially as the process matures, most dies are able to hit high bins without issues. There isn't really a technical need for more than two or three SKUs per design. As e.g. AMD has shown by only releasing three real desktop SKUs in the 5000 series.

to post comments

Thoughts on software-defined silicon

Posted Feb 19, 2022 15:36 UTC (Sat) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733) [Link] (1 responses)

I know next to nothing about ICU manufacturing but couldn't that also be a sign as to the differences in TSMC vs Intel defect rates?

Thoughts on software-defined silicon

Posted Feb 19, 2022 23:33 UTC (Sat) by atnot (guest, #124910) [Link]

Unlikely, as there are two major other differences:

1. AMD could not adjust it's wafer allocations to the shortages easily, as TSMC fab capacity has to be booked far in advance. Intel is far more flexible there.

2. More importantly, unlike Intel, AMD shares silicon between server and desktop processors. Since Server CPUs have far higher margins, this means they are going to prioritize those when push comes to shove as it did last year. In such an environment it makes little sense to launch an SKU for every price point as they usually would.