AMD's internal guidance suggests the company isn't very far from 45nm at all
Late last year, AMD executives alluded to a 45nm successor to the Barcelona core, dubbed Shanghai. AMD's Senior Vice President, Marty Seyer, claimed Shanghai would specifically "bring further performance enhancements, as well as cache efficiency."
Shanghai is apparently more than just a cache-bump. AMD's documentation explicitly claims Shanghai will be the company's first 45nm processor. However, with a die shrink additional cache is one of the immediate architecture options as the smaller node allows for more transistors to fit on the chip die. Shanghai features 6MB of L3 cache.
Barcelona, the 65nm quad-core next-generation Opteron from AMD, is expected to launch this summer with 2MB of L3 cache. L3 cache on the K8L architecture is shared over all four cores, yet each core has an independent L2 cache as well. More details on how this new cache operation works was detailed in June 2006 on DailyTech.
All other features found on Barcelona will also make an appearance on Shanghai: AMD-Virtualization (previously codenamed Presido), RDDR2, and HyperTransport 3.0. Like Barcelona, Shanghai will also tentatively ship with dual and quad-core variants. In 2008 AMD will tennatively add Secure Initialization to all its AMD-V platforms, including Shanghai.
Shanghai will also use the Socket 1207 interface, suggesting existing motherboards will have the opportunity to upgrade to Shanghai processors -- AMD processors are typically designed to work with existing motherboards on same-socket interfaces with simple BIOS updates.
AMD and IBM recently announced intentions to pursue the 45nm node with high-k metal gate technology. Intel disclosed similar process technology information one day prior to the IBM-AMD announcement. Late last year IBM detailed its plans for utilizing immersion lithography for its 45nm test shuttles -- Intel uses the same process as well.
In a recent interview with Reuters, AMD senior vice president of technology development Douglas Grose claimed "We'll be producing early products probably in Q2 of 2008, with full production in the second half." However, Grose also claims the company is still anticipating whether or not it will use high-k metal gate technology in its initial tape-out.
IBM will certainly play an integral role in any 45nm plans for AMD, though production on the 45nm node ramp is not something AMD has discussed at length. AMD's first 65nm processors just hit store shelves a few weeks ago.
Intel's 45nm processor, codenamed Penryn, has already been taped-out. Intel guidance suggests the processor will be available to the channel in Q1 2008.
AMD's Barcelona was previously labeled the K8L architecture by AMD President Henri Richard in March 2007. On paper, Shanghai appears to be architecturally identical to Barcelona but utilizes the smaller node.
