AMD Director of Technical Marketing Robert Hallock spoke from the YouTube rostrum about the innovations in the structure of chiplets containing computing cores with the architecture of Zen 3, a few days before the start of sales of Ryzen 5000 processors. Eight cores on a crystal are now combined into one complex, each of the cores has equal access to the shared third-level cache. The first experiments with removing the cover from the Ryzen 5 5600X processors confirmed that they die with the compute cores after the transition to the Zen 3 architecture has slightly increased in length. According to official figures, the crystal area has grown from 74 to 81 mm ², by 9%. The number of transistors on a chip has grown, according to official figures, by 350 million pieces.

The renowned master of macro photography of electronic components, Fritzchens Fritz, recently published images of the Ryzen 5 5600X crystal with processing cores. The process of removing the cover from the processor, which is held by the solder, as before, was not completed without consequences for the crystal – as a result, it partially collapsed. However, just because of such a risk in such situations, it is the youngest model of the family that gets on the pathologist’s table, as the cheapest.

Compared to the Zen 2 die layout, the Infinity Fabric Controller has shifted from the central area, where it was previously needed for communication between core blocks, to the periphery of the die. These changes are due precisely to the changes in the layout of the cores, which Robert Hallock spoke about – the cores are no longer divided between two segments, but belong to a single complex.

The measurements taken by the enthusiast indicate different dimensions of the chiplets with computing cores: the area is 75.75 mm ² in the case of Zen 2 and 83.74 mm ² in the case of Zen 3. Unlike AMD, which takes into account only the area useful crystal elements, the author of the photos takes into account the total area of ​​the silicon crystal. This technique allows us to state that the crystal area has increased by about 11% compared to its predecessor.

At the same time, the performance of the Ryzen 5000 processors increased by more than 9-11%, so from an economic point of view, the implemented changes justify themselves. The more compact the crystal, the cheaper it is to manufacture. AMD at one time switched to a multichip layout precisely for reasons of the economy.

Images of the 12nm crystal with I / O logic confirmed that it has not changed compared to the Zen 2 architecture. This is also indicated by the words of Robert Hallock, who last week said from the pages of social networks that the memory controller for processors with the Zen 3 architecture remained the same, and it is located on the “central” die.