Intel Discloses 8 Core & 528 Thread CPU Based on RISC Architecture, 66 Threads Per Core

This article is being written by Hassan Mujtaba, from wccftech

During Hot Chips 2023, Intel showed off a brand new CPU design featuring 8 cores but a massive 528 threads based on RISC.

Intel's 8 Core & 528 Thread CPU Can Provide Insane Parallelism & Multi-Threaded Capabilities

The motivations that led Intel to create such a unique chip design are based on some specific work-loads that not only require insane parallel compute capabilities but also lead to under-utilization of the available hardware, most importantly the cache. One such workload is Graph Analytics such as DARPA's HIVE program which is a petabyte-scale graph analytics workload and offers 1000x Perf/W when compared to traditional compute.

For similar workloads, Intel has devised a new CPU with 8 cores and 528 threads. Yes, that's a total of 66 threads per core with 192 KB cache per core and 4 MB SRAM. The CPU is based on the RISC architecture and not x86 but makes use of silicon photonics for networking. The CPU will come in a chipset-esque design featuring EMIB interconnect to connect the optical chips to the main CPU die.

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Taking a closer look, this CPU design from Intel comes with 16 Multi-Threaded Pipelines (MTP) while the Single-Threaded Pipelines (STP) offer 8x higher single-threaded performance. The architecture, as stated above, is based on a custom RISC design featuring 32 registers per thread. The chip also supports a custom DDR5 memory controller, allowing for up to DDR5-4400 DIMMs with 8B access granularity, 32 High-Speed AIB ports, and PCIe Gen4 x8 protocol.

Following is the die breakdown:

• TSMC 7nm FinFET Process Node
• Interconnect: 15 Metal Layers
• 27.6 Billion Transistors (Total)
• 1.2 Billion Transistors (CPU Core)
• 316mm2 Die Area (Total)
• 9.2mm2 Per Core Area
• 705 Signals
• 3275 BGA Form Factor

Coming to the networking capabilities that make use of the aforementioned Silicon Photonics, Intel has laid out a 2D on-de mesh interconnect that uses 16 routers. The cores can talk to others off or on the system without the need to add other networking capabilities.

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The socket (BGA-3275) will support 32 optical I/O ports at 32 GB/s/dir and 32 GB of custom DDR5-4400 DRAM. The platform will extend support to 16 sockets in an OCP sled form factor so that's 120 cores and 8448 threads on the top-most configuration. The platform will also support up to 512 GB DRAM.