Hacker News Reader

I understood that statement as saying they were halving the power usage compared to a traditionally designed chip interconnect that uses ordinary traces rather than the EMIB silicon chip talked about in the article. Not halving the power usage of the entire chip, just the power required for the chip connection.

View on HN

Bewildering. Does a chip interconnect consume anything worthwhile mentioning? Wouldn't that be converted to heat? I have never heard of the motherboard itself heating up...

Edit: yes, the VRM and the chipset itself have beefy heatsinks but not the interconnect between them. https://images.evga.com/products/gallery/131-SX-E295-KR_XL_5... look at the bazillion traces running on the PCB.

It is the drivers on the chip required to go off-chip that consume power and create heat. Look at a die photo. Those wee little transistors in the middle? Logic and memory. Those giagantic cow turds around the edge? I/O drivers.

The heat density of off-chip interconnects are low, but that does not mean non-zero power consumption.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com