So a theory on this; it's not a priority because of risk/reward vs. other segments for AMD.
Intel is still doing some dirty tricks in this space; As recently as a few years ago, HP was still giving slightly higher model #s for Intel vs. AMD chips to subtly make them sound better (they may still be doing this), and the Intel-Dell relationship always has something going on.
Intel products isn't exactly well known for their stellar customer focus. But AMD seems worse in this regard. CCG worked with OEMs to develop technologies for new categories and has done work to level up OEMs to make the newish so--called "macbook compete" class of laptops. AMD seems to have a here's our chip please buy it go to market strategy. Funny because my understanding is in EPYC they did a lot of work to make the process more seamless and work with you to optimize systems and workloads.
AMD does have a few chips they *could* use for this market - the Ryzen Z2 series for example,
I don't think these are ideal. It is kind of tough because AMD doesn't have a Sawtooth or Skymont-LP equivalent. I really like the idea of Apple's 2 big core and 4 true little core arrangement. But if you must have performance, I feel like the 4+4 config is maybe a more well balanced core configuration for a laptop CPU. WIth that said, I wouldn't hate the idea of a 2+6 config especially if your little cores got a lot of grunt like skymont. But back to AMD because they don't have a true LP core (just a slightly more compact layout/synthesis) I feel like a true 15W and below segment CPU from AMD might be best served with a 2 Zen + 2 Zen C. If they must have "muh performance" give it 4 Zen C. The Zen C cores have a good bit of muscle to them but are a bit thirsty and big. IMO that calls for AMD using fewer cores than LNL. But the extra grunt from their cores should in theory make up for some of the core count deficit. The rest of the SOC has a lot of room for improvement too, but I don't even want to pretend to give suggestions on what to do better as I wouldn't have even the faintest idea.
but they haven't scaled up production or fleshed out enough SKUs for it.
This is part of my problem. AMD takes way too long to ramp client parts compared to Intel, QCOM, Nvidia, and MTK. For them a new product is out and within a year it is the majority of the volume. For AMD their ramps and deramps are so slow they never have a majority of volume product because the highest volume thing they have is like 30% of shipments. The biggest area of improvement I have seen is actually launching their laptop parts with the cycle rather than midcycle when no new laptops are launching and nobody is buying.
They also do have multiple monolothic chips that could be scaled down (the APUs); and yes I see you want a separate PCH but the power benefit of the fully integrated die is pretty powerful in this market.
Separate PCH while higher power hasn't stopped intel from beating AMD in low power. While easier said than done, AMD needs to "just figure it out". IMO AMD has no excuse for being so supply limited in laptop all the time. Either pay up with bigger prepay or minimize content on the leading edge node in places where it isn't too painful. A company with a P/E over 100 (like 3x NVIDIA or Apple levels) needs to be growing RAPIDLY, and AMD doesn't have the excuse of "little old AMD is too poor to compete with Intel" anymore.
I'm guessing AMD not seriously entering the U market is a calculated move -- like prioritizing N4 wafers for Epyc over Radeon.
That is easy though since Epyc has competitive strength, radeon doesn't. Additionally, the margins for DC CPUs are WAY higher than client GPUs. But like I have said before I think AMD has somewhat squandered their limited time with a process lead by not putting down bigger prepays and moving to new nodes sooner.
The U market is also where Intel is *most* competitive which means AMD would need to spend more $$ to take market share there than other spaces.
Maybe, that logic works back in the day. But now I don't buy it. AMD has tons of money and has had rapid stock growth. As for client, there is no more important market to invest in. That would be like if AMD said they weren't going to prioritize DC GPUs because they wanted to double down on taking market share from GeForce with Radeon. Yes maybe NVIDIA is easier to out do in client than DC, but looking at that market and saying you don't want to gun for it feels like bad business (especially when your stock price has so rapidly outpaced earnings growth).
It seems you are referring to gate cut after SAC? That is very odd.
Yes SAC is done extremely early in the process and pre RMG gate cut involves cutting the poly then placing a plug so it doesn't get filled back in during RMG. This plug being too close to the fins is what is responsible for the WFM fill issues I mentioned. If you want to do your gate cut post RMG (like N5/N3E) it is by extension after the contact formation. The benefit to doing cut after RMG is that you can have all the space you need to fill your WFM and W, then cut the gate with more margin for error.
