The high-speed connectivity and compute silicon for technology infrastructure provider, Alphawave Semi (LSE: AWE), has successfully taped-out industry’s first off-the-shelf multi-protocol I/O connectivity chiplet on TSMC’s 7nm process. Loaded with flexible and customizable connectivity IP, custom silicon and advanced packaging capabilities, the 7nm multi-standard I/O chiplet delivers a standards-compliant IP portfolio of Ethernet, PCIe, CXL, and UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express) Revision 1.1 product.
The commercial off-the-shelf chiplets will help end customers optimize performance and efficiency as it reduces development time, lower costs and greater flexibility with their existing hardware ecosystems.
The Alphawave Semi chiplet enables up to 16 lanes of multi-standard PHY supporting silicon-proven PCIe 6.0, CXL 3x, and 800G Ethernet in a combination of mixed operating models. The chiplets deliver a total bandwidth of up to 1.6 Tbps. It was industry-first live demo of Alphawave Semi’s 24 Gpbs UCIe silicon platform, which was recently unveiled at the Chiplet Summit 2024 in Santa Clara, CA.
Mohit Gupta, Alphawave Semi’s SVP and GM, Custom Silicon and IP, said, “The successful tape-out of this off-the-shelf, multi-protocol I/O connectivity chiplet demonstrates our extensive experience of using the TSMC 3DFabric ecosystem to integrate advanced interfaces and marks another step forward in Alphawave Semi’s mission to deliver ultra-high-performance connectivity for the critical data communications that underpin the world’s digital infrastructure. Our top hyperscaler and datacenter infrastructure customers can quickly and easily mix and match high-performance custom SoCs with our I/O connectivity or memory expansion chiplets, providing a new level of flexibility and scalability for their AI-enabled systems.”
Percy Chang, Director of Emerging Business Development at TSMC, added, “The tape-out of the Alphawave Semi multi-protocol I/O connectivity chiplet built on our 7nm process is another example of how TSMC is playing a critical role in the semiconductor platforms essential to new and emerging high-performance, high-throughput applications. We will continue to work with our VCA partners like Alphawave Semi to foster a robust and open chiplet ecosystem that delivers the high-bandwidth connectivity and compute silicon needed for HPC and AI applications.”
