This is the European processor Rhea1
French chip designer SiPearl is showcasing its first processor. The overall package is about the size of a palm.
A bare Rhea1 processor without a metal heat spreader.
(Image: Mark Mantel / heise medien)
SiPearl's ARM processor Rhea1 is being shown for the first time at the IT trade fair Computex in Taipei. It is the most important EU project to offer hardware alternatives to established manufacturers like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia. The underlying European Processor Initiative (EPI) aims to reduce dependence.
The heart of the Rhea1 is a compute die with 80 ARM cores of the Neoverse V1 type. Due to a lack of modern European manufacturing processes, the Taiwanese chip contract manufacturer TSMC is taking over production with 6-nanometer structures (N6P). SiPearl only recently received the first functional samples from TSMC.
Four high-bandwidth memory stacks (HBM2e) with a total capacity of 64 GByte are located around the compute die. For more storage capacity, there are four memory channels for DDR5 RAM. The two dies between the HBM are unpopulated and serve only to stabilize the overall construct. Such dummies are common practice for server processors and AI accelerators.
SiPearl Rhea1 (3 Bilder)
Mark Mantel / heise medien
)Financing got off to a slow start
The years-long delay of Rhea1 was mainly due to financing. The so-called Series A financing round took two years longer than expected. Interest in the industry is said to be high despite the now outdated technology. SiPearl benefits from the generally high demand for server processors due to the ongoing AI boom. Bonus: The mature 6 nm manufacturing process drives down costs.
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Rhea2 is currently in the design phase. It is intended to be a high-end ARM processor for data centers. RISC-V is still too young; ARM has so far perfectly matched the requirement profile. The second financing round (Series B) is currently underway, which is expected to bring SiPearl 270 million euros. In general, the company expects significantly faster progress than with Rhea1.
SiPearl CEO Philippe Notton remained tight-lipped about Rhea2's specifications at Computex. Only one process generation is fixed: the company is targeting TSMC's 3 nm technology. Rhea2 will also switch to a chiplet design with multiple dies.
(mma)
