Do they shrink the chip each time?

[Radiation]

When they shrink the transistors do they always have to shrink the physical chip size as well?

How is that progress, we should be getting more transistors and performance in a standard chip space, we seem to be getting less not more with these changes, i reckon it's the reason things haven't really advanced much for years now.

 

[andy_mk3]

The transistor count is increased a fair bit with most new CPU's. (Figures from Wiki Take a 65nm Core2, that has 291,000,000 transistors. Then compare that to a 32nm Sandybridge with 995,000,000 transistors.

I read somewhere we're getting close to the limits with what can be done on a silicone chip. But with things like Intel's tri-gate, there is more to come yet.. transistor count isn't everything. Bulldozer has something like 1.2bn, but that's no better than SB.

 

[sexyhyde]

they have to find what works. there is no point packing as many transistors as you can physically in a chip if they are packed so dense that they overheat. i am pretty sure these guys know what they are doing when they design and make these chips. and andy is somewhat right with regards the limits of silicon. they will reach a physical limit in a few year and the closer they get to it the more problems they seem to be running into.

 

[Martini1991]

The transistor count is increased a fair bit with most new CPU's. (Figures from Wiki Take a 65nm Core2, that has 291,000,000 transistors. Then compare that to a 32nm Sandybridge with 995,000,000 transistors.

I read somewhere we're getting close to the limits with what can be done on a silicone chip. But with things like Intel's tri-gate, there is more to come yet.. transistor count isn't everything. Bulldozer has something like 1.2bn, but that's no better than SB.

Wasn't it 2 billion transistors for the FX8150?

 

[cmndr_andi]

They don't have to shrink the chip size, no. But for the mainstream CPUs Intel is happy to stick with a quad core design at the moment (with a GPU alongside it) - so when going from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge the power usage and production costs will go down. This is great for the vast majority of consumers (both on desktops and laptops) and helps intel's bottom line too.

However, Intel also make enthusiast and sever-focused parts which maintain a large die size while using a smaller process giving a lot more transistors - so they can pack in more cores/cache and generally make more powerful CPUs (like the Sandy bridge-E and Ivy bridge-E).

 

[rossiboy001]

But I would imagine a 32nm not 22nm ivybridge equal count sandybridge size transitor , would cause just as much heat issues , and even bigger iGPU constraints .
Hence why 1.2 billion same size flat version transistors in the same size space bottelneck to the other hardware devices and dont give same bang for buck performance increases and power savings .

 

[jwsg]

I would say the whole point is to shrink the chip - more CPUs per wafer is a higher yield for a given production cost, for more profit and/or a lower selling price. This is the process that's happened for years. It also makes sense to do logic one year (IPC, tock) and physical the next (bit of both this time).