Curiosity:  What are the geometry sizes these days for 32 bit microcontrollers? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2015, 08:58:57 pm
content: You always hear about the fact that the latest Intel processor is 22nm or 14nm. Obviously that is state of the art. The rest of the world works with less. For example, here is an article saying that Russia just got their first 90nm fab:http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/Mikron-1663RU1-16Mibit-SRAM-russia-zelenograd(and apparently with some caveats). What is used for "modern" microcontrollers these days? For example, what geometry do you think is being used for Freescale K70 or Atmel ATSAM4 microcontrollers? Just interested if anyone knows the answer to this, obviously it has no practical implications for most people (though Intel sure does milk it for publicity).

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 04:35:00 am
content: 180nm is currently the jellybean node of choice for digital, not sure about those devices though

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 05:00:58 am
content: Really simple MCUs can't benefit from tiny geometries, as the die size ends up limited by the size of the I/O pad ring. However, for an MCU with a reasonable amount of memory and peripherals to fill the hole in the middle, 90nm is a popular geometry for new parts today. 65nm is rising fast. 45nm is still rare for MCUs. For most designs 45nm is not yet cost optimal, and people are still working hard to get the kind of low leakage people expect from modern MCUs.Of course the vast bulk of MCUs shipping today have geometries between 130nm and 800nm, because the life cycle of most MCUs is quite long. I guess the most popular geometries for ARM M series parts released in the last 5 years would be 180nm and 130nm.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 05:05:52 am
content: Quote from: coppice on September 17, 2015, 05:00:58 amThanks!I was figuring the 8 bit parts all had larger geometries. It just stands to reason, many of them were designed so long ago. But the 32 bit parts all have so much memory and I am sure they all have 100K+ transistors for core logic too, so those would benefit and actually need the smaller geometries.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 12:18:54 pm
content: Quote from: JoeN on September 17, 2015, 05:05:52 ama lot of 8bitters can also run 5V, few modern mcu can do thatI believe stm32 is 90nm, apart from the leakage issue causing problems for low power in smaller geometries, most MCUs need flashand usually takes a while before flash becomes available in a new process

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 01:21:06 pm
content: A thread on Microchip forum says the PIC24 is made on 135 nm. I guess PIC32 could be on smaller nodes.A slide in an Atmel presentation in 2012 says 150nm, 110nm and 90nm :http://amicsa.esa.int/2012/pdf/S3_01_Bancelin_slides.pdf(see page 3)I wouldn't be surprised to see modern ARMs on 90nm or even 65nm but lower than that at least for cheap ICs I would say smaller technology nodes would be not so profitable.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 01:22:54 pm
content: http://siliconexposed.blogspot.com/2014/03/microchip-pic32mz-process-comparison-to.htmlPIC32MX is on 0.25u, PIC32MZ is 0.13u.