Chips with several crystals in a single package are not new. Moreover, the market is actively conquered by heterogeneous systems, such as AMD Rome. A single die in such chips is usually referred to as a chiplet.
The use of chiplets makes it possible to optimize the technical process and reduce the production cost of complex processors; The task of scaling is also greatly simplified. Chiplet technology has its costs, but the Open Compute Project . OCP, remember, this is , within which its participants share developments in the field of software and hardware design of modern data centers and equipment for them. About her we repeatedly to our readers.
Chiplets are now used by many. Not only AMD has moved from monolithic processor cores to "composite processors", the Intel Stratix 10 or Huawei Kunpeng chips have a similar layout. It would seem that a modular, chiplet architecture allows for great flexibility, but at the moment this is not the case - all manufacturers use their own interconnect system (for example, for AMD, this is Infinity Fabric). Accordingly, chip layout options are limited to the arsenal of one manufacturer. At best, chiplets from allied or subordinate developers can be used.
Intel is trying to solve this problem by working with DARPA and promoting an open standard. . Has its own vision of the issue and : back in 2018, the consortium created a subgroup engaged in the study of this problem. The OCP approach is wider than that of Intel, the global goal is the complete unification of the chiplet market. This should make it as easy as possible to create architecturally specific solutions that can combine chiplets of various types and manufacturers: tensor coprocessors, network and cryptographic accelerators, even ASICs for cryptocurrency mining.
The progress of ODSA is solid: if at the time of the first meeting of the group in 2018 it included only seven development companies, by now the number of participants has almost reached a hundred. The work is progressing, but there are many difficulties to be solved: for example, the problem is not only the lack of a single interconnect interface - it is necessary to develop and adopt a standard that allows you to combine chiplets with different functionality, solve issues with packaging and testing ready-made multi-chip solutions, provide development tools, understand the issues related to intellectual property, and much, much more.
So far, the market for solutions based on chiplets from different manufacturers is in its infancy. Whose approach wins, only time will tell.
Source: 3dnews.ru