Newly discovered AMD patent reveals unique GPU architecture with three dies

A newly discovered patent filed by AMD on December 2022 suggests that the company is looking to adopt a multi-chiplet design for its upcoming mainstream RDNA GPU architectures. This isn't the first time we've seen such a design for the company's products, though.

AMD already uses multi-chiplet solutions for its data center graphics cards and Ryzen processors (Ryzen 7 7800X3D curr. $339.99 on Amazon). However, for its current mainstream gaming GPUs, such as the RX 7000 series cards, there's a less complex chiplet design in place. Well, as the newly discovered patent suggests, that might change soon.

The description talks about utilizing three different "modes," with the difference being how the resources are allocated and managed. Among them, the first mode is the "single GPU" mode, which is pretty similar to how a mainstream GPU functions. It shows all the chiplets working as a single and unified processing unit with shared resources.

As for the second mode, it's called "independency mode." The AMD patent says that this mode will allow all three chiplets to work independently. They would be responsible for different functions with the front-end die handling scheduling tasks. The last mode is the most promising, and it's called "hybrid mode."

On that, the chiplets will not only act independently but also co-exist with each other too. This mode aims to take advantage of both independent and unified procession to offer efficient resource utilization and better scalability. While this may sound great, producing such a triple-chiplet GPU would be costly, as it demands high-end equipment. Also, we don't know when and if AMD will adopt the ideas the patent describes.