TapTechNews May 27th, according to a recent report by foreign media IEEE Spectrum, the imec Institute for Microelectronics in Belgium has successfully developed a superconducting processor based on existing CMOS manufacturing tools.
The basic logic unit and SRAM cache unit of this superconducting processor are both based on a special structure called 'Josephson junction'.
imec's superconducting processor realizes logic and memory operations by manipulating the voltage pulses generated by Josephson junctions, and has an energy efficiency advantage compared to traditional processors.
In addition, most of the heat of traditional processors comes from the information transfer between logic units and memory or other logic units, but the new processor of imec uses superconducting materials for interconnection, and the wire resistance is 0, greatly reducing the energy loss in the communication process.
imec's superconducting processor needs to work at a temperature of 4 Kelvin (K) so as not to lose superconductivity as a whole, which means it requires a powerful cooling system.
But even so, when the demand for AI computing power reaches the order of 10+ Petaflops, the system based on superconducting processor will be more energy-efficient than the traditional system based on Nvidia H200.
The high energy efficiency advantage of superconducting processors will be further manifested with the increase of computing power scale. According to the estimation in the report, at the 5 Exaflops AI computing power level, the system based on superconducting processor will consume less than 1% of the power of the traditional system.
In the off-chip memory part, the superconducting processor system of imec still uses the traditional silicon-based DRAM, but is also cooled to 77K to improve energy efficiency. A special glass bridge is used to connect the superconducting processor chip and DRAM, and DRAM goes to the external room temperature environment through a custom connector.
The computing board based on superconducting processor is easy to stack. imec estimates that the first-generation product will include 100 computing boards. The three-dimensional size of this superconducting computing cluster is only 20*20*12 cm, which is roughly equivalent to a shoe box, but it can provide 20 Exaflops BF16 computing power with a power consumption of only 500 kW.
The superconducting processor cluster will make it possible for more compact AI data centers, simplify the process of deploying AI computing power closer to the position where the computing power is needed, and also facilitate seamless integration with quantum computers that are also built on superconducting technology.
TapTechNews attaches the relevant preprint link of the paper at the end of the article. Interested partners can click to learn more: