ST-E Will Have FD-SOI Based U8540: 35% Lower Power, Much Higher Frequencies
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 28, 2012 4:24 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- ST-Ericsson
- Tablets
- SoCs
There's a close relationship between process technology and performance/power consumption, and it's about to get even more important in mobile. We've already seen that with the transition to 40nm and we will see that shortly with the transition to 28nm. Today ST-E announced its upcoming U8540 will use fully depleted silicon on insulator (FD-SOI) transistors to gain a performance and power advantage over the competition. As an example, AMD originally introduced SOI to its processors in the early 2000s as a way of decreasing power and increasing clock speeds. ST-E claims the move to FD-SOI will allow for much higher operating frequencies compared to the L8540, or much lower power at the same switching speed.
Integrated baseband clearly offers some advantages in the market, but a process technology advantage can be even more important...
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AMDJunkie - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
I'm guessing the "working with ST" means the fabs at ST Microelectronics? Also, the slide only mentions the specific process technology of FD-SOI. Is there a confirmation that this is also 28nm? Or is it going to use more mature 40nm with the FD-SOI making up the gap between competitors moving to the smaller node?rocketbuddha - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
To my knowledge there has been 130nm, 65nm, 45nm, 32nm SOI as full nodes. This is the first time I am openly seeing a half-node SOI at 28nm if you exclude the now cancelled roadmaps of Bulldozer successors like Terramar and Sepang.AMD likely can find a new fab partner for its MPUs if u ask me ;-)
danjw - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
Who is ST-E? I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it came up blank.murray13 - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
It's ST Ericsson.Just look at the logo in the pic and then look at their website.
http://www.stericsson.com