Intel Foundry Services (IFS) Now Offers Chiplet Solutions To Their Foundry Customers

Most of the high-end mainstream CPUs and GPUs still use a single chip. While it is possible to increase the size of the chip to increase the performance of these processors. However, fabbing larger-sized chips also decreases the yield rate, as a small error could make the chip completely unusable.

What Is A Chiplet?

This is why brands like AMD and Intel are now looking forward to building and designing chiplets, which are nothing but a pair of a group of chips that work in conjunction with one another. This allows the company to fab multiple chips of small size and get the benefits of one large chip or processor.

Intel is using Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) specifications to make die-to-die interconnection, which is an open industry standard. This allows the chiplets to communicate with each other at high speeds. Currently, the UCIe 1.0 offers 20 times faster I/O performance and consumes 1/20th of the power in comparison to an off-package SerDes.

Intel has now created an IFS (Intel Foundry Services) open chiplet platform, which allows customers to get processors with modular architecture. This allows customers to get a system-on-package instead of a system-on-chip which will include modular blocks of semiconductors called chiplets.

Applications Of Chiplets

According to Intel, chiplet design can be used for data center CPUs, especially for those, who are looking for customized computing machines with improved performance and handle modern workloads including AI-related tasks. A modular chiplet based CPU can include multiple CPU chips, memory chips, and customized chips to handle various tasks.

A chiplet can also have on-package memory integration, which allows customers to build customized solutions for data center applications. This also offers high-bandwidth access to memory when compared to off-package connections. This will be slightly similar the Apple Silicon, which also comes with an integrated memory, which is not user-upgradable.
However, do note that the Apple Silicon M1 is not a chiplet and it is a single chip with embedded memory.

The advanced packaging use technologies like multi-die interconnect bridge (EMIB), which offers high-density on-package interconnect of heterogeneous chiplets with small bridge die and multiple routing layers. Chiplets will allow Intel IFS customers to customize a processor as per their needs, which will both be efficient and powerful at the same time.