bitsandchipsAMD Reveals the Monsterous ‘Exascale Heterogeneous Processor’

[csbin]

There had been rumors about AMD working on a huge APU with Zen cores and Greenland HBM graphics, something that AMD had hinted upon in its official roadmap. However, it has (finally) officially revealed details about the upcoming APU in a paper submitted to IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer). The APU, dubbed an “Exascale Heterogeneous Processor” or EHP for short is the mother of all APUs with 32 Zen Cores, an absolutely huge Greenland graphics die and upto 32 GB of HBM2 memory – all on a 2.5D interposer.

Read more: http://www.bitsandchips.it/9-hardware/5858-amd-exascale-heterogeneous-processor

The research in question can be found over here and requires paid access, however we were able to get the relevant piece courtesy of Bitsandchips.it. As you may notice, the diagram is a very simple block diagram that doesn’t really reveal much, except the number of CPU cores. Fortunately for us, AMD’s roadmap and the relevant knowledge of HBM technology makes it almost child’s play to identify the exact parts.

 

[2is]

It's all "meh" until it's reviewed. I don't buy into the AMD hype train any longer.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yea, WCCF tech, OK. Isn't this the same publication that said Skylake was going to be a conroe like improvement? Anyway, there have been plenty of rumors of big APUs from AMD, like the gddr5 kaveri. Lets see if they deliver.

 

[NTMBK]

It's a theoretical possible configuration, not a product which is set in stone.

 

[sandorski]

I would like to see such a product. It would turn the mediocre APU into a little gaming powerhouse. Whether it would be Cost effective is another question. The Cost of HBM needs to come down I suspect before it is viable.

 

[Dresdenboy]

Please don't discuss this like the next promised desktop powerhouse.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I have a problem seeing this as a KNL competitor, if not KNL successor.

Its a 2017+ product. Its limited to 32GB of total memory. The Zen cores wouldnt serve much purpose besides feeding the GPU part. And hence lowering the performance/watt. It looks to be a jack of trades chip, master of none.

 

[Fjodor2001]

The amount of FUD and errors you were able to compile into one single post is amazing!

Its a 2017+ product.

One of the articles say: "The Opteron processor is set for 2016 and will target the server market solely.", the other says "As for the launch period, the roadmap of the HPC / Workstation of the arrival of the new AMD APU is expected between 2016 and 2017." (translated to English).

Its limited to 32GB of total memory.

The article says "The next generation Opteron processor has eight DDR4 memory channels capable of handling 256GB per channel."

The Zen cores wouldnt serve much purpose besides feeding the GPU part.

What? You mean just like the Intel Xeon CPUs will not be of much more purpose than feeding the FPGA part on Intel's upcoming Altera based chips?

And hence lowering the performance/watt.

Why would it lower perf/watt? And compared to what?

It looks to be a jack of trades chip, master of none.

In what way?

 

[Fjodor2001]

It's all "meh" until it's reviewed. I don't buy into the AMD hype train any longer.

I don't think they are hyping any more than others in the business. For example just look at how Intel hailed Skylake as "its most important chip architecture in a decade". That is totally ridiculous, seeing how it performs in reality.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You try too hard. Lower performance/watt is a bad thing, not a good thing. It means more power is consumed for the same task.

Zen is at best very late 2016 if everything is on track. But again, we know you give AMD a complete freecard

 

[Fjodor2001]

Yea, WCCF tech, OK.

Nope, the primary new article was from "Bits 'n chips".

 

[Fjodor2001]

Zen is at best very late 2016 if everything is on track.

So now you're admitting it's not 2017+ according to plan after all. Good.

 

[ShintaiDK]

So now you're admitting it's not 2017+ according to plan after all. Good.

If AMD had a history of being on track. Oh wait.

Also this is from a research paper, not a product roadmap.

 

[AtenRa]

Please don't discuss this like the next promised desktop powerhouse.

Toooooo late, they already have.

 

[Fjodor2001]

If AMD had a history of being on track. Oh wait.

I think they used to have more problems with that a few years ago. Their latest releases have been more on track.

With Intel it's just the opposite. They used to be on track, but are not any longer since a couple of years back. We've seen severe Intel delays on 14 nm, delays on Broadwell, delays on 10 nm, delays on Cannonlake, panic stopgap Refresh SKUs, the list goes on.

Also this is from a research paper, not a product roadmap.

Its on the roadmap too, although no specific SKUs are mentioned of course:

 

[ShintaiDK]

You can try find the Toronto APU to begin with.

 

[Essence_of_War]

You can try find the Toronto APU to begin with.

And the Berlin APU.

 

[Fjodor2001]

I think those have been scrapped, not delayed. Just like Intel effectively scrapped desktop Broadwell, except for two extremely delayed and specialized placeholder SKUs, mostly MIA on the market.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I think those have been scrapped, not delayed. Just like Intel effectively scrapped desktop Broadwell, except for two extremely delayed and specialized placeholder SKUs, mostly MIA on the market.

Broadwell was never to enter the desktop besides those SKUs to begin with. Carrizo however was scrapped for desktop.

Seattle, Berlin, Toronto however...

 

[Fjodor2001]

And you know that for sure how? Remember how the leaked roadmaps back then used to shift back and forth, sometimes having desktop Broadwell on the roadmap, sometimes not.

I think it simply got so seriously delayed that they figured there was no point in releasing it, with Skylake just around the corner.

As for AMD Berlin and Toronto, I think AMD decided it was better to focus the R&D resources on Zen based next gen products like the one discussed in this thread.

 

[ShintaiDK]

And you know that for sure how? Remember how the leaked roadmaps back then used to shift back and forth, sometimes having desktop Broadwell on the roadmap, sometimes not.

I think it simply got so seriously delayed that they figured there was no point in releasing it, with Skylake just around the corner.

As for AMD Berlin and Toronto, I think AMD decided it was better to focus the R&D resources on Zen based next gen products like the one discussed in this thread.

Yes I know that for sure. Lets see what the roadmap was in October 2013.

What R&D are you talking about? Berlin and Toronto is simply a copy of the consumer parts. Yet there was no market for them. R&D is fully paid, just no buyers.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Yes, according to that roadmap.

As for AMD Berlin and Toronto, there were some differences that warranted separate SKUs, e.g. ECC RAM support. So while not a huge amount of R&D, still work that had to be done, and SKUs that would have to be maintained. Better to focus on next gen Zen then.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Assuming the info in the article is correct, I guess this means AMD will have competing SKUs across Intel's complete server segement. Anything from 8-32 cores, and optionally with on chip GPU cores and HBM too. Or are there any Intel server CPUs with more cores than this planned for 2016/2017?

 

[Enigmoid]

Theoretical for sure.

32 Zen Cores + large CU array + 8 channel DDR4 + HBM on 14 nm is really pie in the sky. Simply no room on die for that much stuff.

Also begs the question why AMD would try to go for such a large die that is really expensive to manufacture when they are pretty much broke.

 

[dark zero]

Unless we have a real benchmark, I don't trust what AMD will do...

They only confirmed the 4 core HBM APU and the 8 Pure Core Zen chips.

Theoretical for sure.

32 Zen Cores + large CU array + 8 channel DDR4 + HBM on 14 nm is really pie in the sky. Simply no room on die for that much stuff.

Also begs the question why AMD would try to go for such a large die that is really expensive to manufacture when they are pretty much broke.

That's where all their money are going... from Kaveri they are using all their money on that last move from AMD.