Quote Originally Posted by freeloader View Post
Temporary solution until Bulldozer is ready?
It better be. Storm clouds are beginning to appear over 32nm for the IBM alliance group. Whenever Intel presented a new process breakthrough, IBM soon followed with a press release in a "me too" fashion. The fact that they needed 18-24 months more than Intel to actually get the process working and release some actual parts was a second story.

Apparently the same happened on 32nm. The problem is bigger however : IBM has made a mistake or so believe other players in the industry. The gate first approach doesn't work. Nothing sucks than to find out you need to reinvent the wheel and start all over again developing a process. How much will it take ? 12 months maybe more, depending on how soon they deciphered and learned what Intel did and how to implement it in their own process.

What does that mean for IBM Alliance customers ? AMD planned to go with a very risky proposition : new uarch and new process. History tells us that is a lousy bet. Imagine the engineers from the Bulldozer team. They've designed the CPU based on given process characteristics, all their models and simulations. Now there is a chance everything might change. A bit nervous ? Of course they are silent at the outside; but I bet Bulldozer will fail to appear in 2011. Fortunately they have who to blame : IBM and GF.

Concerns about threshold voltage shifts and other performance problems with the gate-first approach to high-k/metal gate creation may cause GlobalFoundries (Sunnyvale, Calif.) and other members of the IBM-led Fishkill Alliance to shift to a gate-last technique, sources said at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), going on this week in Baltimore.

"My understanding is that the subsequent thermal steps are causing problems with the gate-first approach," said a senior vice president at Qualcomm Corp. (San Diego) who was attending IEDM. "GlobalFoundries seeks a gate-last approach, and if necessary they could drop in a gate-last module independent of IBM," the Qualcomm executive said.

Asked about the potential switch, a senior IBM technology manager said continuance of the gate-first approach after the current 32/28 nm generation is under review. Any shift to a gate-last approach, if it occurs, would come at the 22 nm node or later. "Both of the gate formation approaches have their problems, and there is no doubt that the gate-first approach is significantly simpler," he said, asking not to be identified. "For IBM, gate first will work well at the 32 nm generation, and I would not underestimate the power of incumbency, which could take it to the next (22 nm) generation. After that, we'll have to see what happens."
http://www.semiconductor.net/article...igh_k-full.php

Translation : yeah, it might work at 32nm, but obviously yields are down the drain. Exactly what foundries want to hear.
It is one thing to show a few transistors or a small SRAM from R&D, it's a completely different thing to get a production process ready to roll. IBM utterly sucks at the later.