[dragontamer]

Intel could do that. But AMD came out with this method first.

AMD has only been doing this "infinity fabric" thing for a year. Intel was caught with their pants down. It seems like Intel is researching chiplet technology and trying to recreate AMD's success here.

It takes several years to create chips. So Intel realistically won't be able to copy the strategy until 2020 or later. But you better bet that Intel is going to be investing heavily into chiplet technology, now that AMD demonstrated how successful it can be.

[greglindahl]

AMD introduced HyperTransport in 2001.

[dragontamer]

HyperTransport and Intel QuickPath isn't chiplet technology.

AMD "upgraded" HyperTransport to Infinity Fabric. Which IIRC uses a bit less power (taking advantage of the shorter, more efficient die-to-die interposer).

Intel has UPI (upgrade over Intel QuickPath), but it hasn't been "shrunk" to chiplet level yet. Intel has EMIB as a physical technology to connect chiplets together... but Intel still needs to create dies and a lower-power protocol for interposer (or maybe EMIB-based) communications.

So Intel has a lot of the technology ready to create a chiplet (like AMD's Zeppelin dies). But Intel wasn't gunning for chiplets as hard as AMD was. Still, Intel demonstrated their chiplet prowess with the Xeon+FPGA over EMIB. So Intel definitely "can" do the chiplet thing, they just are a little bit behind AMD for now.