AMD shows Zen core is 10 percent smaller than Intel 14nm core

Intel and AMD both showed off their latest tech at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco.

EE Times notes one of the more interesting things is that AMD said its upcoming Zen x86 core is smaller than Intel's currently shipping second-generation 14nm processor. AMD reveals its Zen core occupies an area of 44mm², whereas the Intel chip requires 49mm², a difference of about 10 percent.

The site also mentions that analysts and even Intel engineers at ISSCC sounded quite upbeat about Zen:

Analysts and even Intel engineers in the session said the Zen core is clearly competitive though many confidential variables will determine whether the die advantage translates into lower cost for AMD.

The paper detailed techniques AMD used to reduce switching capacitance by 15 percent compared to its existing chips. For example, Zen marked AMD’s first use of a metal-insulator-metal capacitor which helped lower operating voltages and provide greater per-core voltage and frequency control.

Engineers tracked on a weekly basis power benchmarks on high activity regions for more than a year to reduce switching capacitance. The company now has two eight-core designs running with simultaneous multithreading at 3.4 GHz.