Hardware

Hardware

PC hardware and enthusiast computing. CPUs, graphics, fast storage and more.

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Hardware Industry

How did TSMC get so good?

There is no simple answer, but we think there are a few factors that really stand out...
The big picture: By now, we are all familiar with the fact that TSMC is, by far, the most capable semiconductor manufacturer in the world, with all the entails for the industry and geopolitics. And as this reality sets in, many people have been asking us how did they get so good?
Full story By Jonathan Goldberg , 46 comments
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Hardware Electronics

CPU and GPU SRAM caches are not shrinking, which could increase chip cost or reduce performance

Why it matters: An interesting article posted at WikiChip discusses the severity of SRAM shrinkage problems in the semiconductor industry. Manufacturer TSMC is reporting that its SRAM transistor scaling has completely flatlined to the point where SRAM caches are staying the same size on multiple nodes, despite logic transistor densities continuing to shrink. This is not ideal, and it will force processor SRAM caches to take up more space on a microchip die. This in turn could increase manufacturing costs of the chips and prevent certain microchip architectures from becoming as small as they could potentially be.
Full story By Aaron Klotz , 18 comments
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