[dgacmu]

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7602-semicon-west-int... See the table "7nm comparison"

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/7544-7nm-5nm-3nm-logi...

And: https://wccftech.com/analysis-about-intels-10nm-process/

tl;dr: Intel 10nm gets 106.1M transistors per mm^2. TSMC 7FF gets 96.49. Intel 10nm has an HD SRAM cell size of 0.0312 micrometers. TSMC 7LP is 0.0270.

Intel gets a few more transistors per area, TSMC gets more SRAM per area, but on balance, they're pretty similar. From the second article:

"From figure 3 the 4 processes have similar overall process density. GF has the smallest CPP x M2P x Tracks, Intel has the highest MTx/mm2 value and Samsung has the smallest SRAM cell size. The size of a design in each of these processes will therefore be design dependent and I would not judge any of the four processes to be significantly denser than the others. In terms of relative performance, we have no way to judge that currently."

[Note: Updated this post to quote the TSMC numbers instead of the GF numbers, since TSMC is shipping and GF has pulled the plug on 7nm]

[logfromblammo]

It seems as though nm has stopped being a useful unit of measurement in this domain, and we should switch to something else--or several somethings else.

[hinkley]

Does SRAM size here have a practical effect on cache speed? Or is it mostly just down to real estate budget?

[dgacmu]

The numbers here are just real estate - speed is going to be a big "it depends" that can't really be predicted just from area.

(in general, cache speed is more affected by size, and that's an architectural decision -- see, for example, Intel's move to a 1MB L2 in Skylake-X instead of a 256KB L2 (11 cycles -> 13 cycles, but Intel did a lot of work to try to speed up the cache to reduce the pain)).