D
Deleted_171835
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OP
Some users at Neogaf purchased a die photo of the Wii U GPU from Chipworks in order to get more info on the chip.
The die is exactly 11.88 x 12.33mm (146.48mm²). It's manufactured on a 40nm process.
There are a total of 40 logical blocks on the GPU die, excluding memory and I/O. These seem to be composed of 25 different types.
Diigital Foundry claims that the GPU has a 320:16:8 core config. Even including the ROPs, ARM, DSP, Video codec and command processor this only accounts for 18 out of the 40 logical blocks on there, leaving the majority of the GPU logic unexplained.
The GPU is thought to have 40 ALUS per SPU leaving it at 352GFLOPS. For comparison, the 360's GPU is at 240GFLOPS.
A professional from Chipworks, Jim Morrison commented on the GPU.
Been reading some of the comments on your thread and have a few of my own to use as you wish.
1. This GPU is custom.
2. If it was based on ATI/AMD or a Radeon-like design, the chip would carry die marks to reflect that. Everybody has to recognize the licensing. It has none. Only Renesas name which is a former unit of NEC.
3. This chip is fabricated in a 40 nm advanced CMOS process at TSMC and is not low tech
4. For reference sake, the Apple A6 is fabricated in a 32 nm CMOS process and is also designed from scratch. It’s manufacturing costs, in volumes of 100k or more, about $26 - $30 a pop. Over 16 months degrade to about $15 each
a. Wii U only represents like 30M units per annum vs iPhone which is more like 100M units per annum. Put things in perspective.
5. This Wii U GPU costs more than that by about $20-$40 bucks each making it a very expensive piece of kit. Combine that with the IBM CPU and the Flash chip all on the same package and this whole thing is closer to $100 a piece when you add it all up
6. The Wii U main processor package is a very impressive piece of hardware when its said and done.
Trust me on this. It may not have water cooling and heat sinks the size of a brownie, but its one slick piece of silicon. eDRAM is not cheap to make. That is why not everybody does it. Cause its so dam expensive.
http://www.chipworks.com/blog/technologyblog/2013/02/04/looking-at-the-wii-u-graphics-processor/
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=511628
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-wii-u-graphics-power-finally-revealed
Well if there's one thing to gain from this, it's that the GPU is ridiculously efficient. It may not be extremely powerful but this amount of power from less than 33 watts is certainly an engineering feat. And even with this, we still don't know about the other half of the GPU.