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First Intel 7 nm wonder comes to life, Raja Koduri reveals full die shot of the Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC 2-tile GPU with 8,192 cores

Intel Ponte Vecchi Xe HPC die shot. (Image Source: Raja Koduri on Twitter)
Intel Ponte Vecchi Xe HPC die shot. (Image Source: Raja Koduri on Twitter)
Intel's Raja Koduri showed off a die shot of the 2-tile Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC GPU, which is said to feature seven advanced silicon technologies including the 16 compute units that are fabbed on Intel's own 7 nm process. The other key technologies in Xe HPC include Xe Link I/O, HBM2 VRAM, Rambo Cache, EMIB, 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin, and Foveros 3D packaging technology.

Intel's Raja Koduri recently tweeted a photo of a 2-tile Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC die claiming that it includes seven advanced silicon technologies and called it a "thing of beauty". This Xe HPC GPU offers 16 clusters with 64 execution units (EUs) each for a total of 1,024 EUs i.e. 8,192 cores.

While Raja didn't exactly detail which seven advanced silicon technologies he was alluding to, Wccftech managed to get annotations for this die that offer more insights. Wccftech claims that it has verified this annotation from at least two of its sources. According to the publication, the seven advanced silicon technologies could likely be:

  • Intel 7 nm process
  • TSMC 7 nm process
  • Foveros 3D packaging
  • Embedded multi-die interconnect bridge (EMIB)
  • Intel 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin process
  • Rambo Cache
  • HBM2 VRAM

On the top left and bottom right corners we have the Xe Link I/O tile fabbed on the TSMC 7 nm process. We also see two pairs of differently sized HBM2 dies on either side of the compute tiles. The compute units are fabbed on Intel's own 7 nm process, which means we are seeing Intel's new process technology for the first time in the wild.

Running in the middle of each of the 8-compute unit clusters is what appears to be the Rambo Cache fabbed on Intel's 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin process. Surrounding each of the clusters on three sides are passive die stiffeners that do not contain any logic.

Wccftech notes that beneath the tiles is a 10 nm base die while the EMIB interconnect is beneath the passive die stiffeners and the HBM2 memory. The whole package uses Intel's Foveros 3D packaging technology, so there's a lot more complexity to it than meets the eye.

Raja said that this particular package is now ready for power-on. Ponte Vecchio will launch some time in late 2021 or early 2022 and is primarily aimed at datacenter and HPC applications such as the Aurora exascale supercomputer.

At some point, we may also see this technology percolate down to consumer GPUs from Intel. Currently, Intel's consumer dGPU offering is the Xe DG1 with DG2-based Xe HPG expected later this year.

Intel Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC annotated diagram. (Image Source: Wccftech)
Intel Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC annotated diagram. (Image Source: Wccftech)
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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2021 01 > First Intel 7 nm wonder comes to life, Raja Koduri reveals full die shot of the Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC 2-tile GPU with 8,192 cores
Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 2021-01-30 (Update: 2021-01-31)