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>The size of that M1 Ultra package is just enormous i was going to make the same statement. is chiplet design the future? lets put together two powerful chip

>The size of that M1 Ultra package is just enormous i was going to make the same statement. is chiplet design the future? lets put together two powerful chip to make one super powerful chip. i guess its one way to beat the Moore's Law

perryizgr8 5y ago
> is chiplet design the future? Hasn't AMD been doing it for the past half a decade?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
It's not beating Moore's law, it's beating die yield curve limits. Working near the limits of manufacturability will result in occasional defects. If you only have to have a few eight-core 10x8mm chiplets and a more reliable 12nm process node interconnect die come out defect-free, that's much easier than trying to get all of that on a single giant die with 64 cores and the IO on the same die. To exaggerate, if each chiplet has a 50% chance of failing, on average you have to make 16 chiplets to get one good multi-package chip. But you'd need (2^8 * 8) = 2048 to get one contiguous super-die. with no defects.
- philistine 5y ago
  What I've heard is that the M1 Ultra has to be all contiguous to exist. The interconnact cannot be assembled later. All those M1 Ultra chips are indeed 64 cores and the IO on the same die. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20210217702A1/en?oq=2021%2f0217702 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20210217702A1/en?oq=2021...
  - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    Sure, it's not interconnected as in multiple sockets on the motherboard talking over QPI, but it's a silicon interconnect. The M1 Ultra is two M1 Max processors on an interconnect with some DRAM. Here's the Pro, with 8 or 10 CPU cores and 14 or 16 GPU cores, depending on die yield issues where they might have to shut off a couple cores: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/Apple_M1-Pro-M1-Max_M1-Pro_10182021_big_carousel.jpg.large_2x.jpg https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A... Here's the Max, with 10 CPU cores and either 24 or 32 GPU cores for the same reason: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/Apple_M1-Pro-M1-Max_M1-Max_10182021_big_carousel.jpg.large_2x.jpg https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A... And here's the Ultra: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/Apple-M1-Ultra-chipset-220308_big.jpg.slideshow-xlarge_2x.jpg https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A... It's literally two M1 Max bolted together with more RAM around the periphery.
    - philistine 5y ago
      Yeah but those two Max chips that make one Ultra have to be next to one another already on the wafer. That leaves no room for error or picking up a chip from somewhere else.
      - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
        There are a lot of ways to win Tetris with 1x2 blocks! If you make an M1 Max wafer there are a lot of ways to spin out 8/24-core Maxes, 10/32-core Maxes, and adjacent 10/32 core Maxes into an Ultra. Nothing in the patent seems to indicate they have to decide which ones to use before testing the wafer...

perryizgr8 5y ago

> is chiplet design the future? Hasn't AMD been doing it for the past half a decade?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

It's not beating Moore's law, it's beating die yield curve limits. Working near the limits of manufacturability will result in occasional defects. If you only have to have a few eight-core 10x8mm chiplets and a more reliable 12nm process node interconnect die come out defect-free, that's much easier than trying to get all of that on a single giant die with 64 cores and the IO on the same die. To exaggerate, if each chiplet has a 50% chance of failing, on average you have to make 16 chiplets to get one good multi-package chip. But you'd need (2^8 * 8) = 2048 to get one contiguous super-die. with no defects.

philistine 5y ago
What I've heard is that the M1 Ultra has to be all contiguous to exist. The interconnact cannot be assembled later. All those M1 Ultra chips are indeed 64 cores and the IO on the same die. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20210217702A1/en?oq=2021%2f0217702 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20210217702A1/en?oq=2021...
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  Sure, it's not interconnected as in multiple sockets on the motherboard talking over QPI, but it's a silicon interconnect. The M1 Ultra is two M1 Max processors on an interconnect with some DRAM. Here's the Pro, with 8 or 10 CPU cores and 14 or 16 GPU cores, depending on die yield issues where they might have to shut off a couple cores: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/Apple_M1-Pro-M1-Max_M1-Pro_10182021_big_carousel.jpg.large_2x.jpg https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A... Here's the Max, with 10 CPU cores and either 24 or 32 GPU cores for the same reason: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/Apple_M1-Pro-M1-Max_M1-Max_10182021_big_carousel.jpg.large_2x.jpg https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A... And here's the Ultra: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/Apple-M1-Ultra-chipset-220308_big.jpg.slideshow-xlarge_2x.jpg https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A... It's literally two M1 Max bolted together with more RAM around the periphery.
  - philistine 5y ago
    Yeah but those two Max chips that make one Ultra have to be next to one another already on the wafer. That leaves no room for error or picking up a chip from somewhere else.
    - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
      There are a lot of ways to win Tetris with 1x2 blocks! If you make an M1 Max wafer there are a lot of ways to spin out 8/24-core Maxes, 10/32-core Maxes, and adjacent 10/32 core Maxes into an Ultra. Nothing in the patent seems to indicate they have to decide which ones to use before testing the wafer...