To Drive AI, Chip Makers Stack ‘Chiplets’ Like Lego Blocks

livemint.com:

The artificial-intelligence boom is pushing chip makers to speed up development of designs that stack chips together like high-tech Lego pieces. “Chiplets" can be an easier way to design more-powerful chips, according to industry executives who call the technology one of the most significant advances since the dawn of the integrated circuit more than 60 years ago. “A huge part of the future of semiconductors is packaging and chiplets," said IBM head of research Darío Gil in an interview.

“It’s just much more powerful than having to design a massive chip from scratch." Tech giants including AMD, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. last year formed a coalition to create standards for designing chiplets. Nvidia, which has ridden the AI wave to become the world’s first trillion-dollar chip company, joined later.

IBM and some Chinese companies are members too. Apple’s high-end Mac Studio computer, introduced last year and updated in June, is among the early consumer products using a form of chiplet technology to connect two computing processors. The chips are made by TSMC.

In recent months, Intel and Nvidia have each announced chiplet-based customized products. A typical consumer device such as a smartphone contains many types of chip for functions including data processing, graphics processing, memory, telecommunications and power control. The chips are delicately tethered to minuscule wires and ensconced in a protective plastic casing, forming a package that can be fixed to a circuit board.