Tuesday, February 18th 2020

VIA CenTaur CHA NCORE AI CPU Pictured, a Socketed LGA Package
VIA's CenTaur division sprung an unexpected surprise in the CPU industry with its new CHA x86-64 microarchitecture and an on-die NCORE AI co-processor. This would be the first globally-targeted x86 processor launch by a company other than Intel and AMD in close to 7 years, and VIA's first socketed processor in over 15 years. SemiAccurate scored a look at mock-up of the CenTaur CHA NCORE 8-core processor and it turns out that the chip is indeed socketed.
Pictured below, the processor is a flip-chip LGA. We deduce it is socketed looking at its alignment notches and traces for ancillaries on the reverse-side (something BGAs tend to lack). On the other hand, the "contact points" of the package appear to cast shadows, and resemble balls on a BGA package. Topside, we see an integrated heatspreader (IHS), and underneath is a single square die. CenTaur built the CHA NCORE on TSMC's 16 nm FinFET process. The package appears to have quite a high pin-count for a die this size, but that's probably because of its HEDT-rivaling I/O, which includes a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface and 44 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes.
Source:
Semi Accurate
Pictured below, the processor is a flip-chip LGA. We deduce it is socketed looking at its alignment notches and traces for ancillaries on the reverse-side (something BGAs tend to lack). On the other hand, the "contact points" of the package appear to cast shadows, and resemble balls on a BGA package. Topside, we see an integrated heatspreader (IHS), and underneath is a single square die. CenTaur built the CHA NCORE on TSMC's 16 nm FinFET process. The package appears to have quite a high pin-count for a die this size, but that's probably because of its HEDT-rivaling I/O, which includes a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface and 44 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes.
13 Comments on VIA CenTaur CHA NCORE AI CPU Pictured, a Socketed LGA Package
And why devote time & resources to develop a new chip, then waste most of it by using pcie 3 lanes.....
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source: hardware/comments/ep0lf4
PCIe 4 is rather new still, takes time to develop and most current utilities are till on PCIe 3 so it isn't crucial.
I am more surprised seeing AVX512F support, that should have ended up in the article....
No talking about features AMD doesn't support yet.
Hehe
There is also more competition in the "Room Heaters" market with that ridiculous Intel 14nm 10 core chip.