Powering AI processors – 48V vertical power delivery changes the game
AI models demand huge current, driving legacy multiphase designs past 50 phases—causing space, thermal, and control limits Vicor addresses
Gyoukou Supercomputer Leveraging 48V Factorized Power
Watch the demonstration of Gyoukou, the ExaScaler/PEZY ZettaScaler-2.2 liquid immersion cooling supercomputer with a November 2017 Top500 ranking of #5 reported at 19.1PFlop/s and a Green500 ranking of #4 reported at 14.1GFlops/Watt. Each tank within the system is comprised of 256 processors and utilizes 48V Factorized Power, a high-efficiency, high-density power distribution architecture. PEZY CPUs are co-packaged with Vicor Power-on-Package (PoP) Modular Current Multipliers (“MCMs”) which enable efficient, direct 48V to sub-1V current multiplication at the XPU. The Gyoukou supercomputer is installed at the JAMSTEC Yokohama Research Institute in Japan.
Resources
Resources for the design engineer
Innovative 48V AI power architecture delivers both high current density and high current gain
Vicor 48V Factorized Power Architecture slashes thermal losses and delivers high current density to meet the extreme power demands of AI processors
48V Factorized Power Architecture™ slashes thermal losses and outperforms multiphase approach when powering AI
AI hardware faces severe power and cooling limits. Engineers debate 48V vs. 6V intermediate buses alongside new vertical power delivery (VPD) structures
Powering AI at scale
Maury Wood appears on Electronic Specifier podcast explaining the challenges of powering AI and unveiling the trends toward wafer-scale processors