AMD’s Ryzen 3950X May Have Been Delayed Due to Manufacturing Difficulties
News came a week ago straight from AMD that the upcoming Ryzen 3950X would launch in November. The 16-core Ryzen is highly-anticipated by enthusiasts and it was expected that its launch will follow soon after the initial Ryzen 3rd generation lineup.
AMD’s official statement on the delay explained the chipmaker’s plan to ensure volume production, and because AMD had its hands full meeting the demand of other Ryzen 3rd generation processors. But if a report from DigiTimes is to be believed, the launch of Ryzen 3950X may have been delayed due to manufacturing difficulties, specifically, the challenge of producing enough binned chips that meet the specified core/boost frequencies.
The 16 cores/32 threads mainstream juggernaut runs at a base clock speed of 3.5Ghz and Max Boost clock speed of 4.7Ghz.
AMD Ryzen 3rd generation is based on chiplet design and manufactured on TSMC’s 7nm process. Chiplet design allows AMD to offer more cores on the processor by installing multiple chips on a single package. These ‘chiplets’ are connected via the Infinity Fabric. Because of the design, the I/O is also a separate chip on the package.
The package for AM4 can house 2 chiplets and one I/O die, and each chip can feature up to 8 cores. The 3950X represents the full package with each chip featuring 8 cores. This also presents a manufacturing challenge because AMD has to bin chips that have all 8 cores working and meet the specified clock speeds. This is exactly what’s happening, according to the report – AMD and TSMC are not able to produce enough chips that meet the required clock speeds.
However, the fact that the 3950X will release alongside the new Threadripper family means that AMD just needs to get volume in order for the 3950X, as Threadripper goes well beyond mainstream Ryzen in terms of core count.
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