Intel Cascade Lake AP: 48 cores with 12-channel DDR4 in multi-chip package

Some interesting news this morning, Remember a while ago Intel was criticizing AMD, 'glueing' chips together? Well, meet Cascade Lake AP, cores, 12 memory channels - Intel Cascade Lake Advanced Performance, and yes it has two CPU dies on one chip.

The Cascade Lake AP procs will be the Intel answer towards AMD Threadripper. Intel packs two 24-core processors with their six-channel memory interface onto a package. As with AMD this doubles (or quadrupled for AMD) thereby all technical specs. Not only the cores but especially the memory interface is also worthy mentioning, 12 channels from Intel are rather shocking in this market. Intel has announced the Cascade Lake Advanced Processors and has announced the delivery of the 48 core server CPUs for 2019. 

Inter-chip communication will be addressed by an Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI). Intel introduced this with Skylake-SP and eliminated many vulnerabilities of QPI. At that time, CPUs with 3 UPI links were already explicitly intended for the use of systems with two CPUs. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the CPUs are also based exactly on these models and the additional UPI link is branched off directly for communication on the package.

The socket for this chip is gonna be big alright. The twelve memory channels will require many more pins than the socket 3647 can offer so far. A single 28-core die with 6-channel memory interface already is roughly 700 mm² in size and Intel is still at 14nm. The chip would be available somewhere next year.