Analyst firm expects AMD to launch Instinct MI350 featuring 4nm TSMC node

[harlan4096]

Instinct MI350 to use TSMC 4nm node

What’s MI350 and MI350X?



The analyst firm claims there’s another variant of CDNA3-based MI300 APU, but earlier rumors suggested a similar product might have already been cancelled.

The MI350 appears on a list of high-performance General Purpose GPUs/AI-Accelerators, which cannot be exported to China. According to TrendForce, there is an MI350 that reportedly uses TSMC’s 4nm node, as opposed to the 5/6nm node used by MI300A/300X.

The story about MI350 is a bit more confusing, as we have early reports from SemiAnalysis claiming that a similarly named part – MI350X – has already been cancelled. However, the name is not exactly the same, and SA claimed that that part uses TSMC’s 3nm node. After all, those could be different products.
 

The modular XCD building block is 40CUs and on TSMC’s 5nm process technology. AMD used to have the MI350X which had the same AIDs, but different XCDs, that were on TSMC’s 3nm. That part was cancelled for a variety of reasons, including that it would be completely uncompetitive with B100, when you compare the two’s on paper specs.
— SemiAnalysis in October 2023

The analyst firm adds that MI350 is still targeted as a response to NVIDIA’s high-end GPUs, including the B100/B200 series.
 

Furthermore, TrendForce notes that the extension of export controls now includes not only the previously restricted AI chips from NVIDIA and AMD, such as the NVIDIA A100/H100, AMD MI250/300 series, NVIDIA A800, H800, L40, L40S, and RTX4090, but also their next-generation successors like NVIDIA’s H200, B100, B200, GB200, and AMD’s MI350 series.
— TrendForce in April 2024

The MI350 appears on a list of export-banned products alongside other MI200/300 series GPUs. The list is quite lengthy at this point, with only some parts being excluded, such as the RTX4090D, H20, L20, and L2 from NVIDIA. AMD does not have a CDNA3 based export-compliant product yet. However, there were sightings of the MI388X and earlier of the MI309, both of which are also on the affected GPU lists.

Recently, there was news from AMD that the company is preparing a refresh of the MI300 GPU with HBM3e memory. This was stated by AMD CTO Mark Papermaster, but AMD did not confirm the name of the part or when exactly it will be released. Perhaps the MI350 is this product.
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