Speculation Grows As AMD Files Patent for GPU Design
Long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: AMD filed a patent on using chiplets for a GPU with hints on why it has waited this long to extend their CPU strategy to GPUs. The latency between chiplets poses more of a performance problem for GPUs, and AMD is attempting to solve the problem with a new interconnect called high bandwidth passive crosslink. This new interconnect will allow each GPU to more effectively communicate with each other and the CPU. "With NVIDIA working on its own MCM design with Hopper architecture, it's about time that we left monolithic GPU designs in the past and enable truly exponential performance growth," argues Wccftech. And Hot Hardware delves into the details, calling it a "hybrid CPU-FPGA design that could be enabled by Xilinx tech." While they often aren't as great as CPUs on their own, FPGAs can do a wonderful job accelerating specific tasks... [A]n FPGA in the hands of a capable engineer can offload a wide variety of tasks from a CPU and speed processes along. Intel has talked a big game about integrating Xeons with FPGAs over the last six years, but it hasn't resulted in a single product hitting its lineup. A new patent by AMD, though, could mean that the FPGA newcomer might be ready to make one of its own... AMD made 20 claims in its patent application, but the gist is that a processor can include one or more execution units that can be programmed to handle different types of custom instruction sets. That's exactly what an FPGA does... AMD has been working on different ways to speed up AI calculations for years. First the company announced and released the Radeon Impact series of AI accelerators, which were just big headless Radeon graphics processors with custom drivers. The company doubled down on that with the release of the MI60, its first 7-nm GPU ahead of the Radeon RX 5000 series launch, in 2018. A shift to focusing on AI via FPGAs after the Xilinx acquisition makes sense, and we're excited to see what the company comes up with.
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