Core stuff (public number: aichip001)
Compile the | Sing
Edit | Yunpeng
According to the US IT website The Register, Intel will open the soft and hard core licenses of the x86 architecture, enabling customers to mix different CPU IP cores such as x86, Arm and RISC-V in custom-designed chips manufactured by Intel.
Bob Brennan, vice president of customer solutions engineering at Intel Foundationry, said: "We have a so-called multi-ISA (instruction set architecture) strategy. This is the first time in Intel's history that the x86 soft and hard cores have been licensed to customers who want to develop chips. "By licensing x86 soft/hardcore, Intel is able to attract customers who want to build multi-ISA chips to adopt Intel foundry services.
In simple terms, the soft core is the description of a circuit module through the RTL text, and the chip designer can integrate the soft core with other external logic circuits through the EDA tool, and design devices with different performance according to different processes; the hard core is a complete set of processes that can be directly used to achieve chip manufacturing.
Recently, Intel has made frequent moves in foundry services to promote its "IDM 2.0" strategy. Last week, Intel launched a $1 billion fund to grow the foundry innovation ecosystem and officially launched the IFS (Intel Foundry Services) Accelerator, an ecosystem alliance that establishes an upstream open, collaborative ecosystem for its foundry services. Yesterday, Intel announced a $5.4 billion acquisition of Tower semiconductor, the world's ninth-largest foundry.
First, like building a Lego to build a multi-instruction set processor, open x86 to develop foundry business
Previously, Intel x86 architecture's biggest competitor in CPU IP was the CPU architecture of the British Arm. Arm licenses blueprints for CPU, GPU, and other hardware cores to chip design companies, and sells architecture licenses to large customers such as Apple, allowing customers such as Apple to design self-developed chips compatible with arm cores.
Compared with Arm, Intel is more focused on chip manufacturing. Specifically, Intel will be like Lego, according to the focus of different applications, arm, RISC-V core and x86 core, so that different cores connect and work together to create a customized processor.
Intel contains 47 Tile Ponte Vecchio GPU LEGO schematics
With Chiplet technology, different CPU cores will be assigned to different Chiplets and connected through encapsulation.
Bob Brennan, vice president of customer solutions engineering at Intel Foundationry, gave an example: its customers were able to build chips using licensed Xeon cores and match them to AI chips based on RISC-V or Arm IP.
Intel also created so-called Chiplet chassis designs that put together the dies of the x86, Arm, and RISC-V cores and package them into a coherent chip.
Bob Brennan added that Intel has yet to develop a complete strategy, but the focus of its strategy is to enable the IP ecosystem around its products.
In other words, Intel's licensing of x86 will be less like Arm and other IP vendors licensing, but rather like Intel allowing chip design companies to pick the x86, Arm, or RISC-V cores and acceleration engines they want, using Intel's foundry services, to create highly customized x86-compatible processors.
This will probably represent the rise of the Intel Xeon processor ecosystem, as this highly customized x86 processor will have features that are different from Intel's official Xeon family of products. For Intel, the open x86 license will help chip designers to generate demand for their own foundry services.
In this regard, Bob Brennan said: "Broadly speaking, this is to grow our wafer and packaging business, because IFS (Intel Foundry Services) is striving to become the world's best foundry company." This shows how Intel is committed to growing the foundry business in the context of all these different ISA developments. ”
Second, the goal is to use the 16nm process, and the unique packaging technology is the key
For multi-ISA (instruction set) chips that are compatible with cores such as Arm, RISC-V, and x86, Intel's unique interconnect technology will play an important role in the competition.
Bob Brennan didn't say whether these chip chassis designs could be transferred to rival fabs like TSMC, but Intel has some packaging technologies as unique as Coveros that allow high-speed communication between multiple chiplets within a single package.
He added that with open bus standards such as CXL, Intel has been able to connect Arm and RISC-V "seamlessly and cleanly" to Xeon.
According to reports, the multi-ISA chip is aimed at producing on the Intel 16 process, roughly equivalent to chips from other foundries with the 16nm process. In the future, multi-ISA chips will also use Intel 3 and Intel 18A processes.
The Intel 3 will deliver approximately 18% performance per watt over intel 4, thanks to finFET optimizations and increased use of EUV in more processes, with additional improvements in chip area. Intel 3 will be used in production of related products in the second half of 2023. At inel 18A nodes, Intel will use a new transistor structure such as a RibbonFET and a new back-side power supply scheme called PowerVia.
RibbonFET is Intel's implementation of the Gate All Around transistor, Intel's first new transistor architecture since it first introduced FinFET in 2011. This transistor structure speeds up transistor switching speed while achieving the same drive current as the multifin structure, but with less space. PowerVia is Intel's unique and industry's first back-side power transfer network that optimizes signal transmission by eliminating the need for front-facing power wiring of wafers.
Intel Ribbunon FETs and PowerVia technology
At the beginning of last year, it was hinted that the ecological alliance basically contained the IP needed for modern SoCs
In fact, since Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger took office and proposed the IDM 2.0 strategy, the opening of x86 may be the key to this transformation.
Previously, Intel's fabs typically only produced their own x86 processors, but as chip processes evolved, investments in advanced fabs amounted to billions of dollars, and the foundry business became very important. If Intel wants to start a real foundry business, it will have to produce processors with architectures such as Arm, RISC-V and x86 like TSMC and Samsung.
At present, foreign media does not provide details on which Intel x86 cores will be licensed for development, how their customers will be licensed, and specific licensing levels. However, at the beginning of last year, Intel hinted that it would develop CPU core licensing, saying it hoped its foundry services would provide customers with a "world-class IP portfolio, including x86 cores, Arm and RISC-V ecosystem IP."
Recently, the layout results of Intel's "IDM 2.0" strategy are gradually emerging. Yesterday, Intel announced an acquisition agreement with Israel's ninth-largest foundry, Israel's Tower Semiconductor, for $5.4 billion.
Last week, Intel set up a $1 billion fund to advance chip design and development of advanced nodes and manufacturing technologies, including IP, software tools, innovative chip architectures, and advanced packaging technologies.
In addition, Intel announced partnerships with several companies allied with the fund to become a senior member of the RISC-V International Foundation. Intel said in its statement that it will implement modular products through an open Chiplet platform and support design approaches that leverage multi-instruction set architecture (ISA) across x86, Arm, and RISC-V.
According to Pat Gelsinger, Intel's Foundry customers are rapidly adopting a modular design approach to make their products unique and accelerate time to market. Through new investment funds and an open Chiplet platform, Intel can help drive ecosystem development of disruptive technologies that span all chip architectures.
For RISC-V, Intel will also help drive RISC-V's open source software ecosystem. In this regard, Bob Brennan concludes: "We are not going to get paid from our RISC-V software. We just want to make the world a better place, indirectly creating chips. So that's why it's easier for us to be a wholehearted open partner. ”
On the same day that the $1 billion fund was established, Intel Foundry Services (IFS) also launched the IFS Accelerator, an ecosystem alliance. Launched in September 2021, the alliance includes the EDA Alliance, the IP Alliance and the Design Services Alliance, with a total of 17 founding partner companies.
Among them, the EDA alliance members are Ansys, Cadence (Kaiden Electronics), Siemens EDA (Siemens EDA) and Synopsys (information technology); the IP alliance members are Alphawave, Analog Bits, Andes, Arm, Cadence, eMemory, M31, SiFive, Silicon Creations, Synopsys and Vidatronic Members of the Design Services Alliance are Capgemini, Tech Mahindra and Wipro.
Intel said that the IFS Accelerator's IP portfolio includes the basic IP modules required for modern SoCs, all optimized for IFS technology, enabling designers to adopt high-quality IP that meets their design and project schedule requirements. In this regard, Pat Gelsinger also mentioned that this "vibrant" semiconductor design ecosystem is critical to the success of its foundry business.
Conclusion: Open x86 architecture or become Intel foundry tricks
In the conference calls of the previous earnings reports, TSMC always emphasized its advantage as a wafer foundry, that is, it can fully gain the trust of customers so that the two sides can work closely together. In contrast, the manufacturing operations of IDM manufacturers such as Intel are relatively closed, and even asset-heavy fabs and production lines have become a burden on their operations. Before Pat Gelsinger took office, there were rumors in the industry that Intel was shutting down its manufacturing business, and after Intel announced its "IDM 2.0" strategy, its stock price even fell.
With the shortage of wafers and the scrutiny of supply chain security in many countries, chip manufacturing has once again become the focus of the supply chain, and the voice and profitability in the supply chain have risen. After the strategic shift, Intel began to invest heavily in the construction of factories in pursuit of restoring its position in the chip manufacturing industry. The opening of the x86 architecture will become an important part of its foundry service strategy, reflecting its manufacturing openness, cooperation, or becoming a "killer" to attract customers in competition with wafer foundries.
Source: The Register