Imagine you could build a CPU in much the same way that we build PCs today, with parts from
different manufacturers. This might actually become a reality in the near future thanks to a new
standard called the UCI-E that's being pushed by a lot of major players in the tech industry.
UCI-E stands for Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express, and that sounds a bit like PCI Express,
right? Funnily enough, it's conceptually similar. Instead of adding to your computer's functionality
with cards that fit into slots, UCI-E builds on a chip's functionality with additional
chiplets. As an example, UCI-E might allow for a system on chip that has an Intel CPU,
graphics from AMD, and a Wi-Fi radio from Qualcomm, a security enclave from Microsoft,
and an AI accelerator from Google. We did see something like this in 2018 when Intel came out
with those Kaby Lake G processors that featured AMD graphics, but UCI-E takes this concept
further and also standardizes it. That's the important part, but hold on. Systems on a chip
are already a thing, so what's the point of this modular approach? Well, most current SOCs are
designed as a single monolithic chip, which presents some manufacturing disadvantages. You see,
transistors have gotten much smaller, which makes our chips perform better and consume less power,
but as we start hitting the limits of how small we can make them, the obvious way to continue
improving performance is to make the chips bigger. But doing this raises the chances of a
manufacturing defect, one little tiny defect, that will render the entire thing useless. So,
instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the industry is moving towards smaller
chiplets that can be combined after the manufacturer. Moreover, UCI-E enables chiplets from different
companies to be combined, another key difference from how chiplets are usually put together.
You can even combine different chiplets that use different process nodes
onto the same package. Believe it or not, wireless chips for things like Wi-Fi and 5G
actually perform better with larger transistors because there isn't as much signal leakage,
so you could combine a modem built on a larger node with a processor built on a smaller one.
This opens the floodgates for companies to make different kinds of specialized chips
at relatively low cost without having to design them from scratch, meaning it could be
easier and cheaper in the end to get a phone with better AI for photo editing and voice
transcription, for example, instead of like we have right now where we are relying on the
apples of the world to make one chip to rule them all. Alright, let's talk about how these
chiplets would communicate. You know how we compared UCI-E to PCI-E earlier in the video?
UCI-E can actually use PCI Express to move data between chiplets, much the same way
an NVIDIA graphics card can talk with an Intel CPU. UCI-E can also use another protocol called
Compute Express Link, or CXL, which is basically a higher performance PCI-E variant for data centers.
But because UCI-E is designed primarily for chiplets that sit right next to each other,
it's much lower latency than a typical PCI Express implementation, and it can also move
plenty of data. We're talking 1.3 terabytes per second through 1 millimeter of chip edge.
That quick communication means that UCI-E chips could combine features that would otherwise
need to be on separate chips or even separate cards while using a lot less power. But it's not
quite the same thing as AMD's Infinity Fabric or Apple's Ultra Fusion used in the M1 Ultra,
as directly connecting CPU cores like those do requires more complex designs. And keep in mind
that UCI-E is a very new standard, so don't expect to see tons of PCs and phones and servers
that could be rocking it immediately. But it could end up being quite a big deal down the line as
industry heavy hitters like Intel, AMD, ARM, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Samsung, Qualcomm, and TSMC
have all thrown their weight behind the standard. And keep an eye on Apple and NVIDIA. Apple has
moved toward designing their own ARM-based silicon in-house, while NVIDIA continues to favor
monolithic chips. But maybe we'll see them jump on the UCI-E train in the future if it does end
up becoming a ubiquitous industry standard. In the meantime, I think I'll design my own phone
chip with two 5G modems, so then it'll be 10G. That's how it works. 25G! Thanks for watching,
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