Aggregating the company’s flexible and customisable connectivity IP, custom silicon and advanced packaging capabilities, the 7nm multi-standard I/O chiplet delivers a standards-compliant IP portfolio of Ethernet, PCIe, CXL and UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express) Revision 1.1 product.
Chiplets are becoming more important in high-performance compute (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications as they provide connectivity at a higher bandwidth and lower power than traditional infrastructure technologies, but without the need for extensive customisation or development.
Using commercial off-the-shelf chiplets, end customers can optimise performance and efficiency while benefiting from reduced development time, lower costs, and greater flexibility with their existing hardware ecosystems.
Delivering a total bandwidth of up to 1.6 Tbps, the Alphawave Semi chiplet enables up to 16 lanes of multi-standard PHY supporting silicon-proven PCIe 6.0, CXL 3.x, and 800G Ethernet in a combination of mixed operating modes.
The announcement of the tape-out also paves the way for a robust, open chiplet ecosystem that accelerates connectivity for high-performance AI systems by employing UCIe as a die-to-die connectivity subsystem.
“The successful tape-out of this off-the-shelf, multi-protocol I/O connectivity chiplet demonstrates our extensive experience of using the TSMC 3DFabric ecosystem to integrate advanced interfaces and marks another step forward in Alphawave Semi’s mission to deliver ultra-high-performance connectivity for the critical data communications that underpin the world’s digital infrastructure,” said Mohit Gupta, Alphawave Semi’s SVP and GM, Custom Silicon and IP. “Our top hyperscaler and datacentre infrastructure customers can quickly and easily mix and match high-performance custom SoCs with our I/O connectivity or memory expansion chiplets, providing a new level of flexibility and scalability for their AI-enabled systems.”
Commenting Percy Chang, Director of Emerging Business Development at TSMC, added, “The tape-out of the chiplet built on our 7nm process is another example of how TSMC is playing a critical role in the semiconductor platforms essential to new and emerging high-performance, high-throughput applications. We will continue to work with our VCA partners like Alphawave Semi to foster a robust and open chiplet ecosystem that delivers the high-bandwidth connectivity and compute silicon needed for HPC and AI applications.”
