![]() The other arm of Intel’s 20A designs in 2024 is what the company is calling ‘PowerVia’. New Technology Features for 2024: PowerVias The official slide says first half 2024, though as a technology announcement vs product announcement, there is often some lag between the two. Around end of year 2023 is when it gets interesting as TSMC may be looking at its N2 designs, while Intel is committed to that 2024 timeframe. To put this into a table: Gate-All-Around Transistor Deploymentīy this metric, Samsung might be first to the gate, albeit with an internal node, while TSMC is going to get a lot out of its N5, N4, and N3 nodes first. At the time Samsung predicted volume production by end of 2021, and the latest announcement suggests that while 3GAE will deploy in 2022 internally, main customers may have to wait until 2023 for its more advanced 3GAP process. Back in Q2 2019, Samsung Foundry announced the first v0.1 development kit of its new 3GAE process node using GAAFETs was being made available to key customers. Samsung by contrast has stated that it will be introducing its GAA technology with its 3nm process node. Details on TSMC’s N2 have not been disclosed. Staying on FinFETs, TSMC stated, provides comfort to its customers. At its annual Tech Symposium in August 2020, TSMC confirmed that it would remain on FinFET technology all the way to its 3nm (or N3) process node as it has been able to find significant updates to the technology to allow performance and leakage scaling beyond what was initially expected – N3 is quoted to have up to a 50% performance gain, 30% power reduction, or 1.7x density gain over TSMC N5. TSMC is expected to transition to GAAFET designs on its 2nm process. Exactly what is the right number of stacks for any given process or function is still an active area of research, however Intel seems keen on four. Kelleher, ‘it’s easier to remove a stack than to add one!’. ![]() The more stacks that are added, the more process node steps are required for manufacturing, and to quote Intel’s Dr. Given that I have seen presentations from Intel involving anything from 2-stack to 5-stack at the industry conferences, we confirmed that Intel will indeed be using a 4-stack implementation. In Intel’s RibbonFET diagrams for this event, they’re showing both PMOS and NMOS devices, as well as what clearly looks like a 4-stack design. At present Intel’s RibbonFET is due to come with the 20A process, likely to be productized by the end of 2024 based on the roadmaps outlined above. At the time we asked about Intel’s timescale for implementing GAA in volume, and were told to expect them ‘within 5 years’. Mike Mayberry showcased a diagram with the enhanced electrostatics of moving to a GAA design. Intel has been discussing GAAFETs in technical semiconductor conferences for a number of years, at the International VLSI conference in June 2020, then CTO Dr. Where FinFETs relies on multiple quantized fins for source/drain and a cell height of multiple tracks of fins, GAAFETs enable a single fin of variable length, allowing the current for each individual cell device to be optimized in power, performance, or area. Each of the leading edge vendors call their implementation something different (RibbonFET, MBCFET), but it is all using the same basic principle – a flexible width transistor with a number of layers helping drive transistor current. It has been widely expected that once the standard FinFET runs out of steam that the semiconductor manufacturing industry will pivot to GAAFET designs. In Intel’s case, the marketing name they are giving their version is RibbonFET. At this juncture, as mentioned above, Intel will be transitioning from its FinFET design over to a new type of transistor, known as a Gate-All-Around transistor, or GAAFET. One of the major features of this roadmap is highlighted when it shifts to 20A, Intel’s process name referring to Angstroms rather than nanometers. New Technology Features for 2024: RibbonFETs
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |