{"id":53704,"date":"2022-08-23T09:29:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T09:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/why-stacking-chips-like-pancakes-could-mean-a-huge-leap-for-laptops\/"},"modified":"2022-08-23T09:29:06","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T09:29:06","slug":"why-stacking-chips-like-pancakes-could-mean-a-huge-leap-for-laptops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/why-stacking-chips-like-pancakes-could-mean-a-huge-leap-for-laptops\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Stacking Chips Like Pancakes Could Mean a Huge Leap for Laptops"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For decades, you could test a computer chip’s mettle by how small and tightly packed its electronic circuitry was. Now Intel believes another dimension is as big a deal: how artfully a group of such chips can be packaged into a single, more powerful processor. <\/p>\n

At the Hot Chips conference Monday, Intel Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger will shine a spotlight on the company’s packaging prowess. It’s a crucial element to two new processors: Meteor Lake, a next-generation Core processor family member that’ll power PCs in 2023, and Ponte Vecchio, the brains of what’s expected to be the world’s fastest supercomputer, Aurora<\/span>. <\/p>\n

Advanced packaging, which lets chip designers link several “chiplets” into one larger processor, is key to making future PCs faster and more capable. The technology is how AMD builds its top-end PC processor, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and how Apple glues two M1 Max chips into the M1 Ultra, its most powerful Mac processor. <\/p>\n

But that Ryzen chip retails for $440, and the M1 Ultra adds $2,000 to the price of an M1 Max Mac Studio<\/span>. Meteor Lake brings packaging to the mainstream PC market, where consumers buy hundreds of millions of machines<\/span> annually, even in bad years. The advancement will lead to faster, more powerful computers without an eye-popping price tag. <\/p>\n

“Meteor Lake will be a huge technical innovation,” thanks to how it packages, said Real World Tech analyst David Kanter. <\/p>\n

For decades, staying on the cutting edge of chip progress meant miniaturizing chip circuitry. Chipmakers make that circuitry with a process called photolithography, using patterns of light to etch tiny on-off switches called transistors onto silicon wafers. The smaller the transistors, the more designers can add for new features like accelerators for graphics or artificial intelligence chores. <\/p>\n

Now Intel believes building these chipslets into a package will bring the same processing power boost as the traditional photolithography technique. <\/p>\n

“We’re at that point where packaging is as important as the process technology itself,” said Boyd Phelps, leader of Intel’s Design Engineering Group, in an interview. <\/p>\n