Stars Micro System, a Wuxi-based company, has unveiled three new interconnect chips designed for AI servers and clusters, including what it claims is China's first PCIe 6.0 switch. The launch targets AI clusters scaling to tens of thousands of accelerators.
TL;DR
- Stars Micro System introduced three new interconnect chips, including a PCIe 6.0 switch, an 800G AI NIC, and a multi-mode RAID controller.
- The PCIe 6.0 switch supports up to 144 lanes running at 64 GT/s per lane, doubling the per-lane rate of PCIe 5.0.
- The company has already secured cooperation agreements with major tech firms like Tencent Cloud, Inspur, and Lenovo.
What happened
Stars Micro System, founded in 2020, unveiled its first full-stack product launch on October 15. The event introduced three interconnect chips aimed at enhancing AI server and cluster performance. The centerpiece is the C82-4G, described as China's first PCIe 6.0 switch. This switch supports up to 144 lanes running at 64 GT/s per lane, utilizing PAM4 signaling and FLIT mode. The company claims non-blocking switching with latency in the 100-nanosecond range, supporting fabric networking, CXL memory expansion, and memory pooling.
The second product is an 800G multi-protocol AI network interface card (NIC), which Stars Micro says is the first from a Chinese supplier. It integrates a 48-lane PCIe Gen6 switch, supports 800G line-rate forwarding with microsecond-level latency, and offloads RoCE v2. The NIC is designed for Hygon CPUs and next-generation supernode architectures, targeting node-to-node links in large accelerator clusters.
The third chip is a multi-mode RAID controller built with domestic intellectual property. It supports SAS, SATA, and PCIe 5.0 connections, works with both hard drives and SSDs, includes a hardware encryption engine, and reportedly raises bandwidth and IOPS by roughly eight times over the previous generation.
Why it matters
The launch of these interconnect chips addresses a critical need in AI infrastructure: efficient data transfer and management in large-scale clusters. As AI clusters grow, interconnect becomes a bottleneck, and Stars Micro's solutions aim to alleviate this issue. The PCIe 6.0 switch, in particular, extends a CPU's PCIe lanes to GPUs, network cards, and SSDs, enhancing overall system performance.
For developers and startup founders, these new chips offer advanced capabilities for building and scaling AI systems. The 800G NIC and multi-mode RAID controller provide high-speed data transfer and storage solutions, which are essential for handling the massive datasets used in AI training and inference. Investors may see this as a strategic move by Stars Micro to position itself as a key player in the AI hardware market.
The cooperation agreements with major tech firms like Tencent Cloud, Inspur, and Lenovo indicate strong industry support and potential for widespread adoption. This collaboration can accelerate the integration of Stars Micro's chips into various AI server platforms, benefiting the entire AI ecosystem.
Key facts
- Stars Micro System unveiled three interconnect chips at its first brand launch on October 15.
- The C82-4G is claimed to be China's first PCIe 6.0 switch with 144 lanes at 64 GT/s.
- The 800G multi-protocol AI NIC is the first from a Chinese supplier, supporting 800G line-rate forwarding.
- The multi-mode RAID controller supports SAS, SATA, and PCIe 5.0 connections and raises bandwidth and IOPS by eight times over the previous generation.
- Stars Micro has 12 interconnect chips in mass production with return rates below 100 DPPM for chips and below 500 DPPM for boards.
- Cooperation agreements were signed with Kylin Software, UnionTech, Tencent Cloud, Inspur, H3C, ZTE, and Lenovo.
- The company plans to focus on volume production of the next-generation NIC and PCIe 6.0 switch, along with optical interconnect and storage pooling technologies.
- All specifications are company claims and have not been independently verified.
Context
Stars Micro System's launch comes at a time when the demand for high-performance AI infrastructure is surging. As AI models grow larger and more complex, the need for efficient data transfer and management becomes crucial. The introduction of PCIe 6.0 technology represents a significant leap in performance, offering double the per-lane rate of PCIe 5.0.
The cooperation with major tech firms underscores the industry's recognition of the importance of advanced interconnect solutions. These partnerships can facilitate faster adoption and integration of Stars Micro's chips into various AI server platforms, driving innovation in the AI hardware sector.
As AI clusters scale to tens of thousands of accelerators, the role of interconnect chips becomes even more critical. Stars Micro's solutions aim to address the bottlenecks in data transfer and storage, enabling more efficient and powerful AI systems. This development is a step forward in the ongoing evolution of AI infrastructure.