Why would Apple be interested in joining? They have already designed their own interconnect which is higher bandwidth albeit more expensive due to the large number of I/Os.
They don't need to worry about connecting to chiplets made by a third party, nor about saving money in exchange for using a lesser solution.
That patent is for a folded die interconnect, which Apple isn't actually using in their current products. They are using TSMC's InFO_LI: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-clarifies-a... Also, that patent can't be claimed to be "higher bandwidth" given it doesn't reference bandwidth whatsoever.
Alibaba is like Amazon in China, literally. From e commerce to cloud service to custom ASIC. Wouldn't be surprised if it joins anything that Amazon was already in.
Alibaba has designed and it already has in production the server CPU with the highest throughput per socket, according to the SPECrate 2017 Integer benchmark.
The Alibaba CPU, with 128 cores supporting the Armv9.0-A ISA and with DDR5 memory and PCIe 5, beats easily the current AMD Milan or Intel Ice Lake Server CPUs.
Of course for floating-point tasks, the Intel/AMD CPUs would be faster and the future AMD Genoa, with 96 cores / 192 threads per socket is expected to be faster at any task, but until the Genoa launch Alibaba will keep the first place.
Alibaba is also a computer cloud provider, so, like Amazon with Graviton 3, they design their own server CPUs. In the past they have also made the fastest RISC-V CPUs for that time, but they have switched to the ARM ISA now.
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Desierz - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
Hmm, it doesn't look like AMD and Intel are members. At least there's no sign of them on the UCIe contributors page..Desierz - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
Googled it, and it looks like they are. Weird they aren't mentioned..Ryan Smith - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
The Founders (board members) go on their own page. Though that page hasn't yet been updated to include NVIDIA and Alibaba.The complete list is:
Alibaba
AMD
Arm
ASE Group
Google Cloud
Intel
Meta
Microsoft
NVIDIA
Qualcomm
Samsung
TSMC
RU482 - Friday, August 5, 2022 - link
no Apple?Doug_S - Friday, August 5, 2022 - link
Why would Apple be interested in joining? They have already designed their own interconnect which is higher bandwidth albeit more expensive due to the large number of I/Os.They don't need to worry about connecting to chiplets made by a third party, nor about saving money in exchange for using a lesser solution.
Pierce89 - Friday, August 19, 2022 - link
Apple didn’t design any interconnect. They used technology offered by TSMC to any customers. Why make stuff up?mdriftmeyer - Friday, September 16, 2022 - link
Wanna place money on that?https://uspto.report/patent/grant/10,770,433
Research before shooting off at the mouth is always wise.
ethanblake4 - Monday, September 26, 2022 - link
That patent is for a folded die interconnect, which Apple isn't actually using in their current products. They are using TSMC's InFO_LI: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-clarifies-a...Also, that patent can't be claimed to be "higher bandwidth" given it doesn't reference bandwidth whatsoever.
michael2k - Friday, August 5, 2022 - link
Why would they need to be a member to take advantage of it? ARM is at the table and Apple can always license anything they need from ARM.Pierce89 - Friday, August 19, 2022 - link
Pretty sure that the instruction set is all they lease from ARM. They don’t use ARM’s licensed cores like other mobile ARM chips.Exotica - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
https://www.uciexpress.org/membershipAmd intel Qualcomm Samsung TSMC are members.
Exotica - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
Arm as well.Ggaky - Friday, August 5, 2022 - link
Actually, Intel, AMD, Arm, Google and others set it up in the first place. nVIDIA and Amazon was out.https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/intel-a...
ballsystemlord - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
Why alibaba? Aren't they a company that does online shopping? Isn't it monopolistic to go into chip making as well?meacupla - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
If I had to guess, it's for their alibaba cloud services, and maybe their IoT products.erinadreno - Friday, August 5, 2022 - link
Alibaba is like Amazon in China, literally. From e commerce to cloud service to custom ASIC. Wouldn't be surprised if it joins anything that Amazon was already in.rpg1966 - Thursday, August 4, 2022 - link
No. A company that does many things is not a monopoly.AdrianBc - Wednesday, August 10, 2022 - link
Alibaba has designed and it already has in production the server CPU with the highest throughput per socket, according to the SPECrate 2017 Integer benchmark.The Alibaba CPU, with 128 cores supporting the Armv9.0-A ISA and with DDR5 memory and PCIe 5, beats easily the current AMD Milan or Intel Ice Lake Server CPUs.
Of course for floating-point tasks, the Intel/AMD CPUs would be faster and the future AMD Genoa, with 96 cores / 192 threads per socket is expected to be faster at any task, but until the Genoa launch Alibaba will keep the first place.
Alibaba is also a computer cloud provider, so, like Amazon with Graviton 3, they design their own server CPUs. In the past they have also made the fastest RISC-V CPUs for that time, but they have switched to the ARM ISA now.
Lakados - Thursday, August 11, 2022 - link
Alibaba is the worlds 3’rd largest cloud host provider and many of their servers are using their own custom ARM and Accelerator designs.Pierce89 - Friday, August 19, 2022 - link
Different Alibaba. This one is a cloud compute provider I believe.watersb - Monday, August 22, 2022 - link
Re reading this, a week later: any reason to see convergence of UCIe and CXL?