Huawei Ascend 950 reportedly adds on-chip routing without using DRAM bandwidth
bookwormengr · x · 2026-07-23
Huawei’s Ascend 950 NPUs appear to support an UB-Mesh style setup where chips can act as routers as well as endpoints.
- The IO complex sits on separate dies connected to the main dies via die-to-die (D2D) links.
- Each side exposes 9 ports, and traffic can be routed from any port to any port on that side.
- Forwarded traffic stays entirely on the IO die, so it does not enter the compute die and does not consume DRAM bandwidth.
- The design allows mixed injected and forwarded traffic, which could make networking and service planning more flexible.
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