NVIDIA & MediaTek Reportedly Working On Arm Based CPUs With TSMC’s CoWoS Packaging

Following reports of NVIDIA's foray into the PC market with its own Arm-based CPUs, new details have emerged that suggest that the green team will be partnering with MediaTek and utilizing the 2.5D packaging technology from CoWoS for its first processors that rival Apple and Intel.

This week started off with a huge report by Reuters which stated that NVIDIA & AMD were going to go all-in on the Arm bandwagon to compete against Apple & Intel. The news was quickly followed by Morgan Stanley reporting that NVIDIA could possibly work with Meaditek for its first Arm-based CPU architecture aimed at the consumer PC segment. There are also reports that an official follow-up on this matter could come as early as this Friday in a press conference by Medatek.

Now, Chinese tech outlet, UDN (citing Morgan Stanley), is reporting that NVIDIA and MediaTek will be co-partnering to create the very first test chips that utilize TSMC's advanced CoWoS technology which means that we might be looking at a chipset-esque design. The first test chips are expected to be manufactured in the second quarter of 2024 and will enter the high-end notebook market.

It is also reported that the NVIDIA and MediaTek chips will co-package the CPU and GPU on the same interposer so we are likely looking at an Arm-based CPU and a discrete GPU chiplet using NVIDIA's own graphics architectures.

NVIDIA's Tegra SOCs have been doing this for a while now, plus the company also has its Grace Hopper Superchips which combine a high-end H100 GPU & Arm-based Grace CPUs together. The Tegra and the most recent Orin SOC are mostly used for AI & robotics while the Superchips are used for HPC environments. So there really isn't a true chip by NVIDIA that can be used for the high-end notebook segment to tackle Apple and Intel.

MediaTek also has experience in the PC notebook market with its Kompanio Arm chips that serve the Chromebook market. A custom Arm architecture designed by MediaTek & NVIDIA while using NVIDIA's in-house discrete GPU architecture can work great for the high-end notebook segment. It will be some time before we see these chips in action and based on the earlier reports, 2025 is said to be the launch timeframe for NVIDIA's CPUs so it's going to be a long ride nevertheless, these developments are definitely interesting and more competition in the PC segment, the better!

News Source: Dan Nystedt