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Linux Preps For Kunpeng ARM Server SoC With High Bandwidth Memory
New Linux patches from Huawei engineers are preparing new driver support for controlling High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) with the ARM-based Kunpeng high performance SoC.
Huawei's Kunpeng SoC so far has been in the form of the Kunpeng 920 as an aging 7nm CPU with up to 64 cores based on Armv8.2. The Kunpeng 920 supports eight channels of DDR4 memory and has up to a 180 Watt TDP. The specs aren't interesting as we approach 2025 but it would appear there is a new Kunpeng SoC coming that will feature integrated High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).
Unless I missed something, this Kunpeng SoC with HBM memory hasn't been formally announced yet and I haven't been able to find any other references short of pointing to prior kernel patches working on this HBM integration. The patches out today are adding power control support for the HBM memory on the Kunpeng SoC and the ability to online/offline this cache.
The patch series from Huawei explains of this HBM support on the unspecified Kunpeng SoC:
"Add power control support for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for Kunpeng SoC platform. HBM devices on Kunpeng SoC can provide higher bandwidth at the cost of higher power consumption. Providing power control methods can help reducing the power when the workload does not need use HBM.
...
Add a driver for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) devices, which will provide user space interfaces to power on/off the HBM devices. In Kunpeng servers, we need to control the power of HBM devices which can be power consuming and will only be used in some specialized scenarios, such as HPC. HBM memory devices in a socket are in the same power domain, and should be power off/on together.
...
Add a driver for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) cache, which provides user space interfaces to power on/off the HBM cache. Use HBM as a cache can take advantage of the high bandwidth of HBM in normal memory access, and OS does not need to aware of the existence of HBM cache. For workloads which does not require a high memory access bandwidth, power off the HBM cache device can help save energy."
It will be interesting to see what comes of Huawei Kunpeng SoCs with HBM memory and ultimately how well they perform against other AArch64 server processors as well as the Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC competition.
The US can certainly slow down the China semiconductor industry but cannot stop it. I always hoped that there are people smarter than I am running this country but in regard to the semiconductor industry I have serious doubts. How much of Intel and AMD's server revenue is from China?
The US can certainly slow down the China semiconductor industry but cannot stop it. I always hoped that there are people smarter than I am running this country but in regard to the semiconductor industry I have serious doubts. How much of Intel and AMD's server revenue is from China?
Personally I worry more about the availability of rare materials. From wikipedia:
China is the main source for many critical minerals needed for semiconductors, including:
Gallium: China accounts for 98% of global raw gallium production.
Germanium: China accounts for 67% of raw germanium production.
Silicon: China accounts for 79% of global raw silicon and 70% of global silicon production.
Driving those costs up may hurt as much as the lost revenue and will certainly affect supply.
Personally I worry more about the availability of rare materials. From wikipedia:
China is the main source for many critical minerals needed for semiconductors, including:
Gallium: China accounts for 98% of global raw gallium production.
Germanium: China accounts for 67% of raw germanium production.
Silicon: China accounts for 79% of global raw silicon and 70% of global silicon production.
Driving those costs up may hurt as much as the lost revenue and will certainly affect supply.
Those are all easily fixable problems and simply a question of will. Like "rare" earths, there are plenty of potential sources for these materials outisde China. It's just another Western unforced error.
Those are all easily fixable problems and simply a question of will. Like "rare" earths, there are plenty of potential sources for these materials outisde China. It's just another Western unforced error.
Necessity is the biggest driver of innovation and embargoing China while still buying so much from them is a long term recipe for more loss than gain.
Over decades of this continues ASML, AMAT, LAM and others will find their sales drop as China still is the largest future market. What has happened in cars and other heavy industry will happen in tech, it is inevitable
