RHEA 1: Europe wants to catch up in the fleas with the help of the world champion

Europe will soon have enjoyed its first sovereign processor for several decades. His name? RHEA 1, a chip dedicated to supercalculators and intensive calculation designed by the French company SIPARL (cf. box). After years of gestation and hazards, this processor will finally be available in 2026 and will propel the most powerful European supercalcular, the German Jupiter.

Do not imagine replacing the processor of your PC with RHEA-1. Based on an ARM architecture such as the mobile fleas of smartphones, this processor is actually a big baby incorporating no less than 80 CPU cores and two types of memory. A powerful component, designed from the start to be deployed en masse in supercomputers and meet the needs of intensive scientific calculation.

If the instruction game comes from the United Kingdom (ARM) and its European design, its manufacture is obviously foreign. And like all the peak chips on the planet, Rhea-1 is not produced in Europe, but comes from the temple of flea production: Taiwan.

Impossible to produce without taiwan

While Sipearl strives to design the most sovereign processor as possible, this production outside Europe is easily explained. “” It is impossible to do without taiwan “Explains Philippe Notton, founder and CEO of Sipearl. “” Currently, there is no factory (semiconductor manufacturing, editor’s note) peak in Europe, simply because there are no industries. It would take fifty projects like ours to run such a factory in Europe “, He says.

On paper, there are, however, two other actors capable of producing peaks of points: the Korean Samsung and the American Intel. In fact, history is less obvious. “” Regarding Intel, the current context undermines this option. And since Intenl has paused his German projects in Magdeburg, there is no possibility of local production for us. But TSMC especially has the advantage of being both the best, but also of offering interesting partnerships for startups like us ».

An argument that does not exclude de facto samsung. But TSMC also and above all has the advantage of culture and ecosystem. “” I worked nine years for Mediatek (a Taiwanese company) and several Sipearl employees are Taiwanese. Then, in addition to the intrinsic qualities of TSMC, which is the best foundry in the world, for a startup, it is Taiwan which is interesting. Because in the calculation ecosystem, the main designers of motherboards and servers are Taiwanese. So we have global access to all technologies, so it goes far beyond TSMC ».

Taiwan also brings capital

In the case of Sipearl, Taiwanese companies are not only providing technology: they inject cash. Welcome and necessary money for the success of the company.

Starting on a European background, Sipearl has just completed the fourth stage of its first fundamental lifting. In the jargon of startups, it is said that it has just “closed its series A”, which corresponds to a first wave of fundraising before a second (series B), which should display upper amounts.

What amounts are we talking about here? 130 million euros in five years. An amount which seems important, but which however represents only the minimum vital to achieve the objective. Which is nothing less than conceiving fleas capable of tutorialing Intel or AMD.

And when we talk about minimum “vital”, it is not an element of language. “”Last December, I would not hide that we had difficulties“Explains P. Notton. A fragility caused by the status of startup of the company, but also by the astronomical cost represented by the design of a chip. “” Access to TSMC is expensive, chip design software (Eda, Nd) are dear. When we talked about 100 million euros at the start of the project five years ago, we were looked at with big eyes. Today, in Europe, we are starting to understand that it is the bare minimum!».

Some actors, they know that the design of fleas is expensive. Like Cathay Venture, a Taiwanese investment fund which is the main participant in the last fundraising of 32 million euros. “” We believe that Sipearl has a unique position in the European ecosystem of data centers and intensive calculation. And it is an honor for our group to be one of the first investors and we see a long -term investment “Said Stanley Yu, assistant vice-president at Cathay Venture. A long -term relationship that Europe needs … in many areas.

Europe no longer has the culture of semiconductors

In his presentation to the press, Sipearl highlighted his Taiwanese DNA. A mention which is far from being in vain: in addition to a (large) end of capital and the production of his chip and servers in Taiwan, there are also key talents from Sipearl who come from the island. In particular Wayne Liang, a cador of the segment whose company, MSTAR semiconductor, was bought by Mediatek for $ 4 billion. A Taiwanese passed by Silicon Valley which brings skills that simply do not exist in Europe.

With its 5430 pines, 80 cores, two types of memory and sixty billion transistors, RHEA-1 is the most complex processor ever designed in Europe. A project of a dimension higher than all that local talents had never knownwelcomes Philippe Notton. A complexity which explains this need to have, by their side, Taiwanese veterans. Which have the double technological and industrial culture necessary for this kind of project.

And with a future already on the way, because Sipearl is “already developing Rhea-2 and Rhea-3”, also asks another question: that of talents. In addition to factories and capital, Europe also has gaps. “” Even if we wanted to triple our team in size overnight, there are not enough talents in Europe for the time being not enough in Europe “, Details Philippe Notton, who deplores a lack of culture on the part of our continent. Another area where Taiwan could help us?

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