AMD's R600 Die Gets Pixellated

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MORE AND MORE details are appearing about the up and coming graphics processor from AMD, which will be the first GPU marchitecture produced under its umbrella alone.

Without any further adieu, we present you the first pictures of R600 die, which our colleagues at Chinese web site ZOL have published, here.

As you can see, the chip location on the packaging is rather interesting, rotated at a 60 degree angle - but do not be surprised, since this is not the first case of GPU manufacturers rotating the chip on the packaging. There are two reasons for that: first one is the fact that AMD needed more room for resistors which can bee seen around this big die and second is far more important - to shorten the traces to video memory as much as possible, in order to reduce the EM noise produced by the PCB.
Since the R600 comes with 512-bit memory controller, rotating the die was pretty much the only way it could get to stratospheric clocks of both GPU and GDDR-3/GDDR-4 memory.

When compared to the R580 chip, we note that the R600 die is larger by 15 to 20 percent. Given the fact that the R600 is being manufactured in 80nm, which is a half-node, so called "optical shrink" of 90 nanometres, there is less and less doubt that this baby packs at least half a billion transistors. People forget that the number of metal layers is also increasing, so allowing additional hundred million or so transistors to be packed in.

According to our Chinese colleagues, the R600 launch is set for January 20th, 2007. More info about AMD's R600 can be found in our stories about the GPU architecture and the board itself. µ

Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35967