AMD, Intel and Co. join forces for chiplet standard
The biggest players in the semiconductor market are creating the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) standard. This is intended to make it easier to integrate chiplets into semiconductor designs in the future.
Large companies such as ASE, AMD, Arm, Google Cloud, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung and TSMC want to standardize chiplet technology. Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) is the name of the standard that is to ensure communication between chiplets in the future. UCIe is intended to make it easier for manufacturers to combine components for their system-on-a-chip (SoC).
What are chiplets again?
Put simply, there are two ways to make an SoC today. In monolithic chips, all parts of a semiconductor are fabricated at once on silicon. In other words, the SoC consists of a single piece.
In the newer chiplet approach, the components of a chip are fabricated individually and then assembled into one large processor. AMD does this with the Zen 3 processors, for example. The CPU's eight-core chiplets are manufactured in a 7nm process at TSMC, while the input and output chiplets are manufactured at GlobalFoundries. The two components are then combined into one chip.
Advantages of the chiplet design are:
- Less waste, since only chiplets and not complete chips have to be disposed of in the event of defects.
- The individual components can be manufactured in different structure widths. This makes production more flexible and less expensive.
- When different chiplets are combined, larger chips are possible than with monolithic chips, which can have a positive effect on performance.
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