AI Chips Need a Big Change, Says Imec Boss
Okay, so the big boss over at imec, these guys are like totally top tier in the chip world, right? He's saying that if we wanna keep up with the crazy fast world of AI, we gotta change how we make chips. Basically, right now, we're building these super powerful chips for like one specific thing, but AI is changing so quick that by the time the chip is ready, the AI stuff has already moved on. It's kinda like building a really fancy car for one specific race track, but then they change the track! Super annoying, and a big waste of money and energy.
Luc Van den hove, that's the CEO, he said that there's a huge chance we'll end up with a bunch of useless chips because the AI folks are just way too fast. He saw this report thingy before it came out. Some companies, like OpenAI, are even trying to build their own custom chips to go even faster. But Luc thinks that's risky and probably not a good idea for most companies. Like, maybe you need a freelance expert to help you figure out if that's the right path? You could check out Fiverr for that, tbh.
I guess imec is like a pioneer in making chips better. Companies like TSMC and Intel often use the stuff imec figures out years later. Pretty cool, huh? Now, as AI gets even more advanced, moving past just talking to us to like, driving cars or helping doctors, Luc thinks future chips will have all the important parts grouped together in what he calls 'supercells.' Think of them like little building blocks.
Then, he says, a 'network-on-chip' will be able to tell these supercells what to do and change them around really fast so they can keep up with the latest AI stuff. To make this happen, he thinks we'll need to stack these chip layers on top of each other, like a 3D sandwich! Imec was actually a big part of making that 3D stacking tech happen. You'll see this kinda tech in upcoming chips from TSMC and Intel.
Anyway, imec is having their big conference thingy, called ITF World, on Tuesday and Wednesday over in Belgium. Should be interesting to see what else they're cooking up, right?
