With the upcoming 45nm Phenom II and Athlon series, AMD is planning two primary die designs: those with the L3 cache, and those without. Sources suggest that AMD won't be carving out dual-core chips by disabling two cores from a quad-core die (for the Regor core). This is indicated by the estimated die sizes of some of the 45nm AMD desktop cores according to Macadamia from XtremeSystems. The Deneb core is sized at 243 sq. mm, with 140 sq. mm for the Propus core, followed by ~80 sq. mm for Regor. The die-size difference between the Deneb and Propus cores comes from the fact that the former carries a large 6144 KB L3. A lot can be inferred from these die-sizes. Ideally for the smaller core (Propus), the L3 cache is physically lacking, and not merely present but disabled. This could result in the chip having a lesser energy draw. AMD has a string of product-launches in the first half of 2009, that includes the Propus core under the Athlon X4 banner.
AMD Propus and Regor die sizes unveiled?
Posted on Sunday, December 21 2008 @ 13:02 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck