TSMC, the producer of GPUs for each Nvidia and future AMD graphics playing cards, have introduced a brand new wafer-stacking expertise which may permit each corporations to create massively extra highly effective graphics playing cards with out growing the scale or density of their silicon.
Prices are getting higher so you possibly can lastly decide up one of many best graphics cards round.
The TSMC Technology Symposium is occurring proper now out in Santa Clara, they usually’ve unveiled a new technology, referred to as Wafer on Wafer (WoW) which permits them to attach chips collectively with out mounting them laterally on the identical interposer, or utilizing the likes of AMD’s Infinity Fabric or Intel’s EMIB designs to permit them to speak.
The new wafer-stacking tech means chips may be piled on high of one another, very similar to the way in which NAND flash reminiscence is being stacked within the newest strong state drives. The particular person wafers are immediately linked utilizing through-silicon vias (TSVs) and won’t solely permit many extra cores to be contained in a single package deal, but additionally permit them to speak extremely rapidly too.
There can be the potential that these WoW designs may be jammed onto an interposer with different silicon to create correct monster chips. Or even have greater than two wafers stacked on high of one another. Skyscraper GPUs, please!
There are inevitable drawbacks to this kind of manufacturing, and most of that’s right down to the wafer yields TSMC are getting from completely different applied sciences. With two wafers stacked on high of one another, if one of many chips comes out damaged the linked chip is due to this fact ineffective, which might make wafer-stacking too pricey on low-yield merchandise.
That means it’s extra doubtless for use on established manufacturing nodes with excessive manufacturing yields. That would reduce down the wastage and nonetheless produce chips with way more energy than their forebears. Again, that is the way it works in SSD land too.
Intel have additionally filed patents for stacked CPU applied sciences to permit them to mix older manufacturing processes with newer ones to create extra superior chips.
Given the excessive yield of one thing like TSMC’s mature 16nm lithography it won’t be past the realm of risk for an outdated Pascal period chip to be 3D stacked, immediately doubling the core-count of the new child GPU. Tasty. That would give multi-chip graphics playing cards an actual increase, particularly ast they would not really need to seem as multi-GPU to the system.
Okay, proper now that’s just a little far-fetched, and TSMC aren’t going to expose any additional particulars concerning the new WoW tech till they’re good and prepared. But it does imply that TSMC, the most important contract chip producers on the planet, will be capable to provide their companions the aptitude to increase the lifetimes of their architectures on high-yield manufacturing nodes and ship highly effective silicon with out struggling to stuff extra cores into the identical 2D area.
And that could possibly be very thrilling for future GPU refreshes. At the second they’re little greater than rebadges – suppose RX 480 to RX 580 – but when AMD had the choice to stack two Polaris 10 chips on high of one another that will have been a genuinely thrilling refresh.
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