For high volume (the AMD thing is not really that) Sony has been using TSV in it's stacked image sensors for a while now, Omnivision started this year. Samsung uses TSV in DDR4 . It's not that new (and the concept is rather old) but it's not all that cheap yet either.You won't see it in 10 cents chips soon.
IIRC it's been used on some SoCs to stack the ram chip on top of the CPU (saving board area) for at least a few years now. What's new is that techniques for stacking large numbers of chips are going mainstream.
You can also navigate to this hyperlink with Purch advertising link at the bottom of the website. I'm tired of the ads pushing the Pipeline further down the page everyday, ads taking over my screen (especially on mobile), header ad being larger than the Anandtech header, and etc. I understand that ads pay for the site and I am not against ads. Anand did a great job managing the site in this aspect when he owned it - it lent more credibility to the site. Today there's a notebook review ad for Tom's hardware.
I've been reading since 2007. This is the only site I have a login to comment with. I don't to see this site go to crap. I'm not leaving today, but I can see that be a possibility down the road if this management style continues.
If they don't cover PR drops and trade show reveals, what's left? Just hands-on reviews? This is information of interest to the community, and Anandtech reports on whatever information they have, which is often solely provided by the vendor themselves. Seriously, what's the alternative?
I think he means the traditional ads, not the article. If you've got adblock on, turn it off and marvel at how far down the page the actual content has been pushed.
also how narrow the content is. My screen is 22" wide, actual Anandtech content is only contained in an 8" strip down the middle. The other 14" is nothing but advertising. Then you get the pop ups that cover up 50% of the 8" of content, meaning The actual anandtech content is down to about 20" of the screen, the rest is ads...
I never used adblockers because websites do need money to run, and they are providing this service without charging me. But this particular website has gotten out of hand and I will be installing an adblocker that will probably only be used on this site. No other website I visit has ads this obnoxious and overwhelming.
I wonder what kind of impact this would have on performance if these were used in a traditional SSD layout. To what extent is parallelism affected? How does the speed of those stacked dies compare against traditional planar NAND? (1Gb/s vs ???)
ONFI 4.0 specifies 800Mb/s, so the speed boost is an incremental improvement, not revolutionary. The reason is that it's still a BGA-152 package providing a 16-bit interface. If the NAND were stacked onto an interposer along with the controller (ie. how AMD uses HBM), then a really wide interface would be practical.
Which means that even the 50% power reduction isn't as revolutionary either since the overall efficiency of more dies in parallel might be the same or even higher...
They might not replace traditional SSDs in terms of speed, latency and efficiency, but I could see the real potential of these replacing HHDs in terms of capacity and cost. We might even see hybrid solutions too.
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ImSpartacus - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Neat to see this technique see other uses.Is this a relatively new thing for mass produced stuff? I only recall the term from hbm articles but I wonder if it's been "a thing" for a while.
jjj - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
For high volume (the AMD thing is not really that) Sony has been using TSV in it's stacked image sensors for a while now, Omnivision started this year. Samsung uses TSV in DDR4 . It's not that new (and the concept is rather old) but it's not all that cheap yet either.You won't see it in 10 cents chips soon.DanNeely - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
IIRC it's been used on some SoCs to stack the ram chip on top of the CPU (saving board area) for at least a few years now. What's new is that techniques for stacking large numbers of chips are going mainstream.jjj - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Don't confuse PoP with TSV.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_on_package
menting - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
it's being mass produced now, but there are still some teething issues with things like TSV cracks, misalignment, etc.eanazag - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I'm tired of the advertising taking over Anandtech.Please let Purch advertising know. I just did with the contact Purch advertising below.
http://purch.com/advertise/#contact-advertising
You can also navigate to this hyperlink with Purch advertising link at the bottom of the website. I'm tired of the ads pushing the Pipeline further down the page everyday, ads taking over my screen (especially on mobile), header ad being larger than the Anandtech header, and etc. I understand that ads pay for the site and I am not against ads. Anand did a great job managing the site in this aspect when he owned it - it lent more credibility to the site. Today there's a notebook review ad for Tom's hardware.
I've been reading since 2007. This is the only site I have a login to comment with. I don't to see this site go to crap. I'm not leaving today, but I can see that be a possibility down the road if this management style continues.
icrf - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
If they don't cover PR drops and trade show reveals, what's left? Just hands-on reviews? This is information of interest to the community, and Anandtech reports on whatever information they have, which is often solely provided by the vendor themselves. Seriously, what's the alternative?MrSpadge - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Agreed - a quick analysis of a press release is better than nothing, for sure.Mr Perfect - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I think he means the traditional ads, not the article. If you've got adblock on, turn it off and marvel at how far down the page the actual content has been pushed.Margalus - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
also how narrow the content is. My screen is 22" wide, actual Anandtech content is only contained in an 8" strip down the middle. The other 14" is nothing but advertising. Then you get the pop ups that cover up 50% of the 8" of content, meaning The actual anandtech content is down to about 20" of the screen, the rest is ads...I never used adblockers because websites do need money to run, and they are providing this service without charging me. But this particular website has gotten out of hand and I will be installing an adblocker that will probably only be used on this site. No other website I visit has ads this obnoxious and overwhelming.
T1beriu - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
He's not talking about PR drops. He's complaining about the massive ad banners that started to cover the site.bill.rookard - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Be a little proactive. Adblock Plus (assuming a Firefox user) does a wonderful job of eliminating all that garbage (well, ok, 99.9%).Impulses - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
Hadn't even noticed, ads haven't changed on mobile... Still one per page at the bottom of the page.lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I wonder what kind of impact this would have on performance if these were used in a traditional SSD layout. To what extent is parallelism affected? How does the speed of those stacked dies compare against traditional planar NAND? (1Gb/s vs ???)Billy Tallis - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
ONFI 4.0 specifies 800Mb/s, so the speed boost is an incremental improvement, not revolutionary. The reason is that it's still a BGA-152 package providing a 16-bit interface. If the NAND were stacked onto an interposer along with the controller (ie. how AMD uses HBM), then a really wide interface would be practical.lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Which means that even the 50% power reduction isn't as revolutionary either since the overall efficiency of more dies in parallel might be the same or even higher...lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
They might not replace traditional SSDs in terms of speed, latency and efficiency, but I could see the real potential of these replacing HHDs in terms of capacity and cost. We might even see hybrid solutions too.triadone - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
Isn't this what spurred the terminators?