• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Chinese Researchers Want to Make Wafer-Scale RISC-V Processors with up to 1,600 Cores

AleksandarK

News Editor
Staff member
Joined
Aug 19, 2017
Messages
2,999 (1.07/day)
According to the report from a journal called Fundamental Research, researchers from the Institute of Computing Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a 256-core multi-chiplet processor called Zhejiang Big Chip, with plans to scale up to 1,600 cores by utilizing an entire wafer. As transistor density gains slow, alternatives like multi-chiplet architectures become crucial for continued performance growth. The Zhejiang chip combines 16 chiplets, each holding 16 RISC-V cores, interconnected via network-on-chip. This design can theoretically expand to 100 chiplets and 1,600 cores on an advanced 2.5D packaging interposer. While multi-chiplet is common today, using the whole wafer for one system would match Cerebras' breakthrough approach. Built on 22 nm process technology, the researchers cite exascale supercomputing as an ideal application for massively parallel multi-chiplet architectures.

Careful software optimization is required to balance workloads across the system hierarchy. Integrating near-memory processing and 3D stacking could further optimize efficiency. The paper explores lithography and packaging limits, proposing hierarchical chiplet systems as a flexible path to future computing scale. While yield and cooling challenges need further work, the 256-core foundation demonstrates the potential of modular designs as an alternative to monolithic integration. China's focus mirrors multiple initiatives from American giants like AMD and Intel for data center CPUs. But national semiconductor ambitions add urgency to prove domestically designed solutions can rival foreign innovation. Although performance details are unclear, the rapid progress shows promise in mastering modular chip integration. Combined with improving domestic nodes like the 7 nm one from SMIC, China could easily create a viable Exascale system in-house.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Give it a decade and china might be actually far more advanced in tech then the west is.

The ban on exports and such only yielded china to actually invest billions into chip design.

Good game.
 
Give it a decade and china might be actually far more advanced in tech then the west is.

The ban on exports and such only yielded china to actually invest billions into chip design.

Good game.

Im going to go ahead and say that its going to take them less time then that.
 
If China becomes completely chip independent, the fallout is much worse than you think because they will start exporting said chips to places like Africa, South America, Russia, etc. And with a communist capitalist society, they won’t be slaves to profit margins and shareholders. Companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia will go bankrupt overnight.

Just consider how everything in your home says ‘Made in China’ except for chips. Now imagine how homes in upcoming countries with no China sanctions will look.
 
Imagine the yields and the resulting price on that thing, also inter-core latencies! Yuck!:fear:
 
If China becomes completely chip independent, the fallout is much worse than you think because they will start exporting said chips to places like Africa, South America, Russia, etc. And with a communist capitalist society, they won’t be slaves to profit margins and shareholders. Companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia will go bankrupt overnight.

Just consider how everything in your home says ‘Made in China’ except for chips. Now imagine how homes in upcoming countries with no China sanctions will look.
They can already produce chips, but they are bad/Inefficient and incompatible. No one wants to use them unless they are forced to.


You think the current challenges of chip development and manufacturing is a walk in the park and China can just achieve this by throwing billions at it. Well, they've been doing this for some time and realized they couldn't do it, so they started appropriating IP by corrupting employees of large corporations.

Look at intel, they have the billions $$$, experience, subsidies, IP, no sanctions on their backs and yet they are suffering for years to move forward.
 
It is the semiconductor version of Backyard furnace, and history already told us what would happen.
 
My country whatever it is now is the dumbest country in the history. Give everyone the tools to destroy us. Big cities ruined this entire country. I live in a small city of 20k. We now have a homeless population. The golden age of America is done. Have fun with a communist #1 super power. I live where there is farms all around I'll be fine. This country whatever it is now can burn for all I care. And I'll watch and say I predicted this 30 years ago when all the good jobs went over there for greed. Oh well it was nice while it lasted.
 
My country whatever it is now is the dumbest country in the history. Give everyone the tools to destroy us. Big cities ruined this entire country. I live in a small city of 20k. We now have a homeless population. The golden age of America is done. Have fun with a communist #1 super power. I live where there is farms all around I'll be fine. This country whatever it is now can burn for all I care. And I'll watch and say I predicted this 30 years ago when all the good jobs went over there for greed. Oh well it was nice while it lasted.

Capitalism is one hell of a thing
 
Isn't Cerebras attempting the same?
 
Imagine the yields and the resulting price on that thing, also inter-core latencies! Yuck!:fear:
I was gonna say. Sure it can be done, but at what cost?
Even mature nodes only yield something like 80-90%, so what are the chances you could use a whole wafer. Sure, this is 22nm, not 5nm or less, but still...

Capitalism is one hell of a thing
Capital will only go where it's allowed to go. This isn't a capitalism problem, it's a globalization one.
 
Enough spare sectors are provided to ensure that there are enough good ones in every part of the cluster. In this sense, although there are defects, the wafer is generally considered to be a 100% usable yield.
I don't understand why you find it so impressive. AMD can get almost 5000 cores from a single wafer (500-600+ CCDs/wafer)
 
I read it. Not all wafers are made the same or are equal. Would still like to see it!
True, but most wafers today are 20-30cm, so that gives you an idea. They also tend to be round, so maybe it doesn't...
 
My country whatever it is now is the dumbest country in the history. Give everyone the tools to destroy us. Big cities ruined this entire country. I live in a small city of 20k. We now have a homeless population. The golden age of America is done. Have fun with a communist #1 super power. I live where there is farms all around I'll be fine. This country whatever it is now can burn for all I care. And I'll watch and say I predicted this 30 years ago when all the good jobs went over there for greed. Oh well it was nice while it lasted.
my small town is so infected w the plagues of drugs it's ruining my small town that was one of the most stable places to live in the country! it's sad really.. and guess where the drugs come from?

and also the precarious situation w TSMC being in Taiwan is making ppl nervous and I hope that AMD will forge a solid backup plan. They need US fabs yesterday!

They can already produce chips, but they are bad/Inefficient and incompatible. No one wants to use them unless they are forced to.


You think the current challenges of chip development and manufacturing is a walk in the park and China can just achieve this by throwing billions at it. Well, they've been doing this for some time and realized they couldn't do it, so they started appropriating IP by corrupting employees of large corporations.

Look at intel, they have the billions $$$, experience, subsidies, IP, no sanctions on their backs and yet they are suffering for years to move forward.
This! Intel has everything going for them, they strong arm manufacturers too, go to dell, lenovo, acer, asus, hp, etc and they have 70% intel systems and only 30% ryzen or epyc or threadripper based systems... not a lot of OEMs have as much AMD based systems as Intel!

Intel owns thier fabs
No sanctions
Literally have everything set up so nicely... Yet THEY FAIL SO HARD RN...

complacency is the enemy of innovation! They've had it too easy and look where they are!
 
True, but most wafers today are 20-30cm, so that gives you an idea. They also tend to be round, so maybe it doesn't...
They can be as large as 100cm. Some of Intel's wafers were once that large as a standard. MOS Tech wafers were as big as 110cm IIRC, but that was decades ago. So there really is no set size.
 
Back
Top