Innosilicon Technology announces Fenghua No.1 server-level GPU
The company called Innosilicon Technology has just announced its first ‘high-performance GPU for servers. It is, by no means, a gaming card, but the first Chinese attempt in making an actual competitor to NVIDIA/AMD offering.
The press release does not overwhelm readers with details. For instance, the specifications of the card are sadly not listed. What the press release does confirm, however, is that the GPU called Fenhua No.1 has been successfully tested and ‘achieved breakthroughs in domestic high-performance graphics in data centers’. Because that’s what Fenghua No.1 really is, a server GPU.
Innosilicon Fenghua No.1, Source: Innosilicon
Innosilicon Fenghua No.1 (supposedly pictured above) would be a dual-fan design with HDMI and DVI display connectors. It is therefore not a headless discrete GPU, but a workstation card. The interesting facts are that this card actually has PCI Express 4.0 support and actually even comes with HDMI 2.1 and e-DisplayPort 1.4 support.
More importantly, Fenghua No.1 graphics card comes with GDDR6X memory onboard (not stated how many modules or of what capacity). This memory technology has thus far been exclusive to NVIDIA RTX 30 gaming GPUs. The company actually has a dedicated page for its own GDDR6X technology overview here. Innosilicon is to offer up to 21 Gbps bandwidth for this technology. Whether that applies to Fenghua No.1, we don’t know.
It is reported that “Fenghua No. 1” GPU is the industry’s first rendering GPU that adopts the world’s top GDDR6X high-bandwidth video memory technology and cutting-edge technologies such as Innolink chiplet. China’s patented physical unclonable encryption PUF technology, PCIe 4.0, HDMI2.1, DP/ Self-developed advanced technologies such as eDP 1.4 have also gathered in one core. “Fenghua No. 1” is the first domestically compatible 4K high-definition desktop and high-performance server-grade GPU, supporting domestic Linux, Android, and Windows operating systems; supporting mainstream graphics frameworks such as OpenGL/OpenGLES/OpenCL/Vulkan/DX; supporting VR /AR/AI; Smoothly supports data center-level multi-user application scenarios such as multi-channel cloud games, cloud phones, cloud offices, and cloud desktops. The successful tape-out of “Fenghua No. 1” demonstrates the strong strength and low-key style of Inspur in the custom development of advanced technology IP and GPU.
[machine translation of the Innosilicon’s PR]
Probably the most interesting tidbit from the official press release is that it mentions support for various graphics APIs, including DirectX. So far all news coming from China about new discrete GPUs was quickly overshadowed by limited API support. While the Innosilicon does not confirm which version is to be supported, even DX11 API support could make a lot of noise in the GPU market.
Innosilicon Fenghua No.1, Source: Innosilicon
Source: Innosilicon via Tom’s Hardware
