| SamuelRSmith said: @tombi - This is a question I've always asked, how much does shrinking component size save? And is it worth doing it so often when there is so much R&D involved in doing so. |
i m no expert in it.. but wot little knowledge i gathered during my studies is that there r two types of shrinking... first is in which you redesign the floorplan or layout of the chip and then shrink.. the advantage is that u can shrink more or u can decrease the power and heat more or u can increase speed more depending upon quality attribute you focussed when you redesign of the floor plan of the chip...
Other is simple and straightforward shrinking in which you donot do any of these customized... keep the same floorplan and layout of the componend and just make them smaller.. only thing u have to do in this is to retest and revalidate and unless nothing unexpected is discovered you can have a shrinking for very cheap ....
As sony does not need to increase speed or reduce extra power or heat from the chip to fit them in blade servers i think they will be following the second type of shrinking and the cost of doing it will be recovered a lot quickly then one can imagine..
