AMD bags IEEE’s 2024 Corporate Innovation Award for pioneering chiplet design research

AMD is celebrating major industry recognition after being awarded the 2024 Corporate Innovation Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 

The semiconductor giant was recognized for its development and deployment of chiplet architecture designs aimed at transforming high-performance computing (HPC), which the institute described as pioneering. 

The industry recognition highlights the transformative research conducted by AMD’s engineering teams, according to Mark Papermaster, executive vice president and chief technical officer at AMD. 

“Several years ago, our passionate, world-class engineering teams began addressing the scaling challenges of traditional chip design,” he said. 

“Everyone takes modular architecture for granted now, but at the time it was radical thinking. Its success is as much a feat of engineering as a testament to the power of teams with diverse skills and expertise working together, despite uncertainty and risk, toward a common vision.”

AMD was among the first companies to harness the capabilities of chiplet architecture to drive advances in processor performance, efficiency, and flexibility, helping extend and build upon previous performance gains under Moore’s Law. 

The firm’s research has helped extend and build upon previous performance gains under Moore’s Law, and in 2018 introduced the first processor that featured a chiplet-based x86 CPU design.

The second-generation AMD EPYC server processor was powered by the “Zen 2” core architecture, which has since been built upon to deliver marked performance gains. 

AMD has also incorporated chiplet architectures across the breadth of its processor portfolio, including AMD Ryzen CPUs for PCs, AMD EPYC processors for data centers, and AMD Instinct accelerators for use in HPC and AI development. 

This marks the second time AMD has received this award. In 2005, the institute recognized the company for its pioneering research in the evolution of x86 microprocessors and its extension to a 64-bit architecture, which is the foundation of modern data centers and PCs.

How AMD led the way in chiplet architectures

AMD’s new processor design approach involved overhauling traditionally monolithic SoC designs into multiple smaller “chiplets”, which it said allowed researchers to rapidly accelerate time-to-market and deliver high performance, energy efficiency, and cost-effective chips. 

These chips leveraged common designs for multiple markets and a wide array of use cases. 

IEEE said AMD’s chiplet architecture has “nearly halved” the manufacturing cost of producing modern processors, and have brought notable advantages such as greater data bandwidth to memory, and higher compute capability compared to more conventional designs. 

AMD’s research into chiplet design continues to drive advances in computing performance and efficiency, which IEEE said will enable the industry to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges through scientific research. 

The chiplet-based AMD EPYC processors, for example, are currently used within the Frontier supercomputer, the world’s first exascale machine. Scientists are currently using Frontier to develop innovative new technologies for use in energy and medical science.