Intel and Micron are very interested in the technology developed by Eliyan to facilitate the interconnection between different chiplets. The Californian start-up announced on November 8, 2022 a fundraising of 40 million dollars. This Series A is led by Tracker Capital with participation from Celesta Capital, Intel Capital and Micron Ventures.
This technique of chiplets consists in assembling several integrated circuits in a single processor, unlike the microprocessor which integrates all its functions in a single and unique circuit. Concretely, this technique avoids having to burn the entire chip at once. It is used to increase computing power at a lower cost.
Successfully tested with 5nm chips
The start-up was founded in 2021 by Ramin Fajadrad, Syrus Ziai and Patrick Soheili. Eliyan is working on a solution to facilitate the interconnection between the chiplets. Its technology, called NuLink, makes it possible to interconnect the chiplets using a standard SIP (system in package or system in a box), which corresponds to a system of integrated circuits confined in a single module. She assures that this reduces the cost of materials and waste in the manufacturing process.
The start-up adds that it has recently successfully tested its technology with 5 nm chips from TSMC. It claims to achieve better bandwidth, energy efficiency and latency than with today’s solutions. This method of “chip packaging” aims to achieve the scale of performance and integration desired for applications requiring a high intensity of calculations in particular for hyperscale, data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and the graphics.
Towards a standard for the industry?
The stated objective is to easily interconnect, and without loss of computing power, integrated circuits responding to different architectures and/or manufactured by different manufacturers with different etching finenesses. The start-up ensures that its NuLink solution complies with UCIe standards. The UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express) consortium – in which Intel participates – aims to standardize the manufacture and interconnection of chiplets in the industry. Its objective is to develop a standard so that chiplets can be reused by different manufacturers with interconnection ensured by rules that it will have defined.
With this financial contribution, Eliyan wishes to accelerate the design, testing and deployment of its technology. The start of production is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023. The race for technological innovation in the field of chips is slowed down because it is increasingly difficult to miniaturize them. Chiplets provide a solution to this problem.
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