3D IC technology development started many years ago well before the slowing down of Moore’s law benefits became a topic of discussion. The technology was originally leveraged for stacking functional blocks with high-bandwidth buses between them. Memory manufacturers and other IDMs were the ones to typically leverage this … Read More
3D-ICs bring together multiple silicon dies into a single package that’s significantly larger and complex than traditional systems on a chip (SoCs). There’s no doubt these innovative designs are revolutionizing the semiconductor industry.
3D-ICs offer a variety of performance advantages over traditional SoCs. Because … Read More
Semiconductor manufacturers are under constantly increasing and intense pressure to accelerate innovative new chip designs to market faster than ever in smaller package sizes while assuring signal integrity and reducing power consumption. Three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D-ICs) promise to answer all these demands… Read More
The TSMC Technical Symposium is today so I wanted to give you a brief summary of what was presented. Tom Dillinger will do a more technical review as he has done in the past. I don’t want to steal his thunder but here is what I think are the key takeaways. First a brief history lesson.
The history of TSMC Technology Development with 12 key… Read More
For the past few decades, System-on-Chip (SoC) has been the gold standard for optimizing the performance and cost of electronic systems. Pulling together practically all of a smartphone’s digital and analog capabilities into a monolithic chip, the mobile application processor serves as a near-perfect example of an SoC. But… Read More
Our smart phones, tablets, laptops and desktops are the most common consumer products with advanced 2.5D and 3D IC packaging techniques. I love seeing the product tear down articles to learn how advanced packaging techniques are being used, so at the User2User conference in Santa Clara I attended a presentation from Tarek Ramadan,… Read More
It was nice to be at a live conference again. DesignCon was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, my favorite location, which to me there was a back to normal crowd. The sessions I attended were full and the show floor was busy. Masks and vaccinations were not required, maybe that was it. Or there was a pent-up demand to get back engaged… Read More
The incredible growth that the semiconductor industry has enjoyed over the last several decades is attributed to Moore’s Law. While no one argues that point, there is also industry wide acknowledgment that Moore’s Law started slowing down around the 7nm process node. While die-size reductions still scale, performance jumps… Read More
System on chip (SoC) based design has long been recognized as a powerful method to offer product differentiation through higher performance and expanded functionality. Yet, it comes with a number of limitations, such as high cost of development. Also, SoCs are monolithic, which can inhibit rapid adaptation in the face of changing… Read More
Background
Traditionally, the interface between chip designers and system power, packaging, reliability, and mechanical engineering teams was a relatively straightforward exchange of specifications. Chip designers developed preliminary power dissipation estimates, often based on a simplifying power/mm**2 value. … Read More
