VIA subsidiary Centaur is working on x86 CPU with AI accelerator and AVX-512

Centaur has released details about a new octacore processor for servers it is working on. The chip is built around CNS, a new x86 microarchitecture from the company, and Ncore, a deep learning compute accelerator.

Centaur Technology, an American subsidiary of VIA Technology, revealed that it was working on the processor in November but is now publishing details via an analysis. The server processor runs at 2.5GHz and is produced at 16nm by TSMC. The tdp does not yet disclose the company. The chip has eight x86 cores that share 16MB of L3 cache. There is support for four memory channels for ddr4 dimms and 44 pci-e 3.0 lanes.

Centaur wants to start production in the second half of 2020 and focuses on use for low-cost servers, although the price is not yet known. The company itself considers its architecture to be similar to Intel’s Haswell, with the main drawbacks being the lack of multithreading and micro-op cache on Centaur’s octacores. On the other hand, support for 256-bit AVX and AVX2 is present, and AVX-512 is also supported, via decoding in two micro-ops by 256-bit wide processing units. The Advanced Vector Extensions are for efficient processing of vector calculations.

The real feat of the Centaur chips is the integrated deep learning accelerator called Ncore. The size of this ai-co processor is about half that of the octacore part. The Ncore can have 16MB sram and must relieve the octacore for deep learning calculations. The total size of the chip is 194mm².

Centaur was previously responsible for, among other things, the design of the VIA Nano. The processors of the Chinese Zhaoxin, a joint venture of VIA, are then based on this.