Cerebras details largest chip ever built with 2.6 TRILLION transistors

Cerebras reveals more details about its WSE-2 (Wafer Scale Engine) which packs 40GB of on-chip SRAM, 20PB memory bandwidth.

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Cerebras revealed its next-gen WSE-2 (Wafer Scale Engine) chip last year during the Hot Chips 2020 conference, but the company has now provided more details at the Linley Spring Processor Conference.

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We already knew that the next-gen Cerebras WSE-2 packed an insane 850,000 cores ready for AI work, and an even-more-insane 2.6 trillion transistors (yeah that's trillion with a T). Cerebras' new details on the WSE-2 include the fact that it has 40GB of on-chip SRAM, 20 petabytes of memory bandwidth, and 220 petabits of aggregate fabric bandwidth.

The new WSE-2 is the largest chip ever made, packing 2.6 trillion transistors and 850,000 AI-optimized, fully programmable cores. Cerebras crams all of that into a single silicon wafer, all on TSMC's 7nm process. The entire chip is simply gigantic -- and while it's the same 46,225mm2 as its predecessor in the WSE-1, the new WSE-2 packs some gigantic upgrades.

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Cerebras has upgraded the WSE-2 across the board, dropping down from the 16nm process to the newer 7nm process we might have the same 46,225mm2 silicon area but transistors have over doubled from 1.2 trillion to 2.6 trillion as too have the AI-optimized cores that over double from 400,000 cores to 850,000 cores.

There's over double the on-chip SRAM with the original Cerebras WSE-1 packing 18GB, the new WSE-2 has 40GB while memory bandwidth leaps up from an already crazy 1.9PB/sec (yes that's a P) up to an even crazier 20PB/sec, with fabric bandwidth over doubling as well from 100Pb/s to 220Pb/s.

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Cerebras says that the new WSE-2 chip will have a clock range between 2.5GHz and 3GHz, but the new chip packs over twice the performance over the WSE-2 while using the same power. That's a pretty big deal for a chip like this.

Cerebras has its new WSE-2 working in systems right now, with availability of the WSE-2 aimed for Q3 2021.

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Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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