Electronic – What are these long gold plated SMD components on the NVidia Tesla A100

componentsidentificationsurface-mount

This photo shows a NVIDIA Tesla A100 board. Please note the 4 SMD components on each side of the chip. Looks like gold plated ceramics. I have never seen components like this. Can someone identify this components?

enter image description here

Link to full story:
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/nvidia-tesla-a100-with-ga100-ampere-gpu-spotted.html

Best Answer

It seems like this is a Power-On-Package from Vicor.

They call these modular current multiplieres (MCM) and they are basically step down converters. They aim to drive these with their modular current drivers (MCD) with a voltage of up to 48V from the mainboard and step the voltage down only a few cm from the current hungry IC (that might draw up to 640A peak\$^1\$), to reduce power losses in PCB traces and socket pins.

On this page they say that NVidia uses these modules for the AI accelerators.

\$^1:\$ Disclaimer: Marketing data

enter image description here

enter image description here Image source: Vicor Website