According to the latest industry rumors, AMD will be the first company to take advantage of TSMC’s SoIC (System-on-Integrated-Chips) technology for multiple series of high-performance computing (HPC) chips. In essence, we are facing a technology that would compete face to face with Intel Foveros technology that allows the stacking of different chips in a three-dimensional way under the same package.
This would allow AMD to create EPYC chips with a graphics chip based on the CDNA architecture such as an AMD Instinct GPU, and all with its own built-in HBM memory. Quickly and simply put, a kind of vitaminized ‘Super APU’ for exascale computers . This allows to create much more powerful chips while being smaller and more energy efficient by being able to include the processor, memory, sensors and other components in a single silicon.
TSMC is planning to implement the SoIC design at a foundry in Miaoli where a new plant is being built. Construction of this facility is scheduled to be completed this year with mass production in mind beginning in 2022 . That means CPUs based on the AMD Zen5 architecture could come with 3D stacking technology, dramatically increasing the total number of possible cores , especially in server-oriented models, accompanied by integrated graphics.