Nvidia’s 36-module research chip is paving the way to multi-GPU graphics cards

Nvidia has been working on a prototype multi-die AI accelerator chip called RC 18. The 36-module strong chip, developed by Nvidia Research, is currently being evaluated in the labs, and its highly scalable, interconnected design could act as precursor to high-end, multi-GPU graphics cards. The current prototype for Nvidia’s multi-die solution was taped out on TSMC’s 16nm process - the same one utilised in most 10-series GeForce graphics cards. Its rather small footprint is made up of 36 tiny modules, each one comprised of 16 PEs (Processing Elements), a basic RISC-V Rocket CPU core, buffer memory, and eight GRS (Ground-Referenced Signaling) links totally 100GB/s I/O bandwidth per chip. All in all the chip is fitted with some 87 million transistors in total. "We have demonstrated a prototype for research as an experiment to make deep learning scalable” Bill Dally, head of Nvidia Research, says at GTC 2019 (via PC Watch). “This is basically a tape-out recently manufactured and is currently being evaluated. We are working on RC 18. It means ‘the research chip of 2018.’ It is an accelerator chip for deep learning, which can be scaled up from a very small size, and it has 16 PEs on one small die."

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