So far, the 6nm variants of the RX 6000 Radeons have been heard in two contexts. The first was to be an add-on for desktop models of graphics cards with the RDNA 3 architecture. They are therefore intended to cover 6nm versions of current RDNA 2 architecture chips, namely 6nm versions Navi 22 a Navi 23. With 6nm version Navi 21 (Radeons RX 6800/6900) does not count – it would not make sense, because Navi 33 (also 6nm) will cover this performance segment. RDN 2 generation 6nm desktop models should be released sometime in early 2023 (after RDNA 3 is released).
The second context was the mobile refresh of the current 7nm models of the RDNA 2 architecture. This seems to happen much earlier, probably in the first half of 2022. has not been surpassed and until the release of Nvidia Lovelace in the mobile segment, which is significantly more sensitive to the energy side, the transition to 6nm process makes sense as soon as possible, despite the hypothetically higher production costs. In addition, within the available 6nm production capacities, it can increase supply volumes, as it increases the logic density by up to 18% compared to the 7nm process. About 15-20% more chips are produced from one wafer.
Otherwise, however, there can be no huge expectations from the 6nm process, it is a renamed so-called N7 + process, ie 7nm TSMC process with added EUV lithography (although it has a slightly different architecture than the immersive 7nm process, but there were no ambitions to overcome the 7nm process, but with regard to the successful implementation of the EUV). TSMC does not explicitly state how much 6nm should reduce consumption or increase power compared to 7nm production, but for rough guidance it can be recalled that the original N7 + process should bring a maximum of 10% frequency increase (at the same consumption), or 15% (according to other materials 6- 12%) reduction in consumption at the same rates. It is therefore possible to expect a maximum of ~ 10% better energy side, ie if a 7nm chip with a power of 100% reached 100W of consumption, a 6nm chip can achieve 90 watts to achieve 100% power.
VideoCardz estimates that AMD could release 6nm chips in the first quarter of 2022 following the 6nm APU Rembrandt (Zen 3+ a RDNA 2), while these models will differ from the existing ones by the letter “S”, so for example, instead of the Radeon RX 6800M, it will be the Radeon RX 6800S.
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