Zen: An Energy-Efficient High-Performance $\times $ 86 Core

AMD's next-generation, high-performance, energy-efficient ×86 core, Zen, targets server, desktop, and mobile client applications with a 52% instructions per clock cycle (IPC) uplift over the previous generation. The increase in IPC complements a 15% process neutral reduction in CAC (switching capacitance). Performance and energy efficiency are further improved with various circuit techniques including write wordline boost, contention-free dynamic logic, supply droop detection with mitigation, a per-core frequency synthesizer, and a per-core integrated linear voltage regulator. Utilizing a 14 nm FinFET process, the Zen core complex unit consists of a shared 8 MB L3 cache and four cores.