Zen 2 shapes up for 2019

12nm after 2018 and 7nm for 2019

It looks like it will be 12nm for RyZen’s successor in early 2018 and in 2019 AMD is planning Zen’s 2 core 7nm based Matisse follow up

As Fudzilla already reported that in 2018 AMD will release the Ryzen / Epyc refresh based on 12nm new updated core. The core will have many Zen similarities but will add a new trick. It should be seen as an update and a polishing of the architecture.

12nm should enable more transistors per square millimeter and slightly higher clocks. Since Intel is still have hard time to launching its 10nm processors, it looks like that AMD will come to market earlier than Intel with its with 14nm shrink. Let’s wait and see on this one. Intel has the power to surprise and it won’t give up without a fight.  The 12nm comes from Global Foundries’ announcement where AMD’s CTO Mark Papermaster made it official.

Mattise is the code name AMD chose for Zen 2 core and 7nm architecture. It is a really big deal as it is supposed to launch in 1H 2019. This a way into the future, but it won’t be easy for the competition to move to 7nm to beat it.

Most mobile manufactures will go after 10nm and later 7nm while in the meantime there is a 12nm and Samsung’s 11nm architecture. Intel was clear 10nm is next probably starting with some low power notebook parts in late 2017 and expanding to a higher performance chips in the course of 2018.

The future Ryzen will continue to use the same AM4 sockets which is always nice, but it remains to be seen if you will need a new motherboard to upgrade from Ryzen (Summit Ridge 2017) to Pinnacle Ridge 2018 desktop part and later in 2019 the Zen 2 based Matisse.

We still don’t know Matisse is actually named after Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse and if so then the name promises a lot of innovation.