Nvidia may have some of its data center GPUs ‘packaged’ by Intel. Sources report this to the Taiwanese UDN. TSMC is currently fully taking on that task with its CoWoS packaging technology, but the Taiwanese chip maker cannot meet all demand.
Nvidia is not switching completely to Intel, but will only outsource a small part of its production to the American chipmaker. Sources report this to the Taiwanese newspaper United Daily News. This should happen from the second quarter of this year. TSMC remains Nvidia’s primary supplier. According to UDN, Intel will process approximately 5,000 wafers per month for Nvidia, which would account for approximately ten percent of Nvidia’s total demand, according to the daily. For example, this could amount to 300,000 Nvidia H100 data center GPUs every month, writes Tom’s Hardware.
Intel Foundry Services would not produce the GPUs themselves, but would only package them with advanced techniques. UDN sources do not indicate exactly which techniques are involved. Many of Nvidia’s data center GPUs for AI, including the high-end A100, H100 and H200, are currently packaged with TSMC’s CoWoS technology. This is a technique for 2.5D packaging, with which different chips are connected to each other on a silicon interposer. This allows the chips to be placed closer together.
HPC chip makers, including Nvidia, use the CoWoS technology, for example, to connect their GPUs to fast HBM memory. Intel provides its Foveros packaging technology, also based on interposers, although that technology is not one-to-one identical to that of TSMC. Nvidia will likely need to tweak and validate its designs before it can leverage Intel’s packaging capabilities for large-scale production.
TSMC previously acknowledged that it currently cannot meet the demand for advanced packaging, in which separate chip dies are combined into a working whole. This is due to the high demand for data center GPUs used for training AI models. The company reportedly said last year that it wanted to ‘accelerate’ efforts to increase its packaging capacity, DigiTimes reported at the time.
With its Foundry Services division, Intel now also offers chip production and packaging services for other companies, where it previously used its entire production capacity for its own products. The American chipmaker recently opened a new packaging factory in New Mexico. This was the first factory where Intel can use Foveros on a large scale to package chips. The manufacturer also has packaging capacity in Oregon and is currently building an advanced packaging fab in Malaysia.
TSMC’s CoWoS technology (left) and Intel Foveros