AmpereOne-3 Chiplet CPU To Feature 256 Cores on TSMC’s 3nm Node With PCIe 6.0 & DDR5, Launches Next Year

Ampere Computing is leveraging TSMC's 3nm process node for its AmpereOne-3 CPU, offering up to 256 cores, in the coming year.

Ampere Computing has been well involved in the markets, especially the cloud segment, since the firm gained traction in the markets with its lineup of cloud-focused processors, which are known to be some of the most "loaded" ones out there in terms of the onboard core count. The company's releases include the likes of the AmpereOne processor, which comes with 192 physical cores, along with a TDP of 350W and eight DDR5 memory channels, competing with the likes of Intel's Xeon Scalable and AMD's EPYC. However, the firm has now disclosed plans for the future, revealing new SKUs with "astonishing" specifications instead.

The Next Platform reports that Ampere is preparing to launch its second generation of AmpereOne processors. Speaking to the media outlet, the firm's chief product officer, Jeff Wittich, revealed that the new AmpereOne-2 is expected to drop by somewhere later this year, with an upgraded "A2" core architecture, along with 12 memory channels to guarantee the best performance.

Combining such upgrades, Ampere believes that the AmpereOne-2 will be able to chip in a 33% increase in DDR5 memory controllers onboard, along with a 50% higher memory bandwidth, consequently a cumulative increase in performance.

Apart from the AmpereOne-2, the company has plans to release the third generation of the lineup by 2025 as well, and based on what has been disclosed, the specifications are something that we haven't seen much in the markets. The AmpereOne-3, or the third generation, will debut with a whopping 256-core count and feature TSMC's 3-nanometer process in a chiplet configuration. The architecture will reportedly include PCIe-Express 6.0 and a dozen DDR5 memory controllers. With this, Ampere plans to compete with some of the industry's top contenders, including NVIDIA.

We have been moving pretty fast on the on the compute side. This design has got about a lot of other cloud features in it – things around performance management to get the most out of all of those cores. In each of the chip releases, we are going to be making what would generally be considered generational changes in the CPU core.

We are also taking a chiplet approach with this 256-core design, which is another step as well. Chiplets are a pretty big part of our overall strategy.

- Jeff Wittich via The Next Platform

We can't comment on whether Ampere Computing could manage to garner the same attention that NVIDIA did in the AI segments. Still, based on what the firm has planned, they will certainly play a relatively dominant role moving into the future.

News Source: The Next Platform