Intel Joins CHIPS Alliance to Foster Chiplet Ecosystem

In its effort to foster a broad chiplet ecosystem, Intel has joined the CHIPS Alliance and is contributing its Advanced Interconnect Bus (AIB), a protocol that can be used with Intel’s EMIB packaging technology.

The CHIPS Alliance is hosted by the Linux Foundation and was set up to fuel the creation of open SoC and software for a range of applications, though developing open source hardware code (RTL).

Intel has now joined the consortium to share its Advanced Interconnect Bus protocol as an open source, royalty-free PHY-level standard for connecting multiple die within the same package. This allows other companies to develop chiplets that are compatible with Intel’s and others' chiplets. 

The consortium says that the AIB specs will be further developed in its Interconnect workgroup. All AIB technical details will be place in its GitHub.

Dr. Zvonimir Bandić, Chairman of CHIPS Alliance and senior director of next-generation platforms architecture at Western Digital said: “Intel’s selection of CHIPS Alliance for the AIB specifications affirms the leading role that the organization impacts for open source hardware and software development tools. We look forward to faster adoption of AIB as an open source chiplet interface.” 

It is not the only protocol Intel has for its EMIB packaging, though, as it is already working on the next-generation MDIO, although the company is only opening up AIB at the time.