this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Is it that easy to move a design from let's say 4nm TSMC to Samsung? I always assumed if something was designed for one, it would be trouble to move it to another. I mean if the size if cache these days isn't shrinking, and there is a 5% difference or so in logic density between the two 4nm nodes, would that not screw up a design of logic decreases but cache was the same? Or do they just upscale everything by 5%?
They logical design doesn't change. But they have to use Samsung's process design kit for the physical design (cell creation, placement, routing etc)
Contract wise, you will need to hire separate teams. People working with TSMC will not be allowed to work with Samsung and vice verse cause these foundries will not want their trade secrets to be leaked out.
Only the physical design. Also there's no such requirement, not that strict anyways. Much smaller companies have worked with both, e.g. Tenstorrent. AMD can easily manage that.
From the article it looks like nothing is being moved really. There is a general architecture that is Zen 5c but both TSMC and Samsung variants will be different designs developed independently.