A newly discovered patent filed by AMD in December 2022 suggests that the company is looking to adopt a multi-chiplet design for its upcoming mainstream RDNA GPU architectures. However, it is not the first time we have seen a design of this type for the company’s products.
AMD already uses multi-chiplet solutions for its data center graphics cards and Ryzen processors (Ryzen 7 7800X3D currently $339.99 on Amazon). However, for its current general-purpose gaming GPUs, such as the RX 7000 series cards, there is a less complex chiplet design. Well, as the newly discovered patent suggests, that could soon change.
The description talks about the use of three different “modes”, the difference of which lies in how resources are allocated and managed. Among them, the first mode is “single GPU”, which is quite similar to the operation of a conventional GPU. Shows all chiplets from https://research.ibm.com/blog/what-are-computer-chiplets working as a single, unified processing unit with shared resources.
As for the second mode, it is called “independence mode”. AMD’s patent says that this mode will allow all three chiplets to work independently. They would be responsible for different functions, and the front chip would take care of scheduling tasks https://www.run.ai/guides/multi-gpu/gpu-scheduling. The last mode is the most promising, and it is called “hybrid mode.”
In it, the chiplets will not only act independently, but will also coexist with each other. This mode aims to leverage both independent and unified procession to provide efficient resource utilization and better scalability. While this may sound great, producing such a triple-chiplet GPU would be expensive as it requires high-end equipment. Furthermore, we do not know when and if AMD will adopt the ideas described in the patent.
