3D-IC For The Masses


The concepts of 3D-IC and chiplets have the whole industry excited. It potentially marks the next stage in the evolution of the IP industry, but so far, technical difficulties and cost have curtailed its usage to just a handful of companies. Even within those, they do not appear to be seeing benefits from heterogeneous integration or reuse. Attempts to make this happen are not new. "A decade... » read more

Chiplets Add New Power Issues


Delivering and managing power are becoming key challenges in the rollout of chiplets, adding significantly to design complexity and forcing chipmakers to weigh tradeoffs that can have a big impact on the performance, reliability, and the overall cost of semiconductors. Power is a concern for every chip and chiplet design, even if the specifics differ based on the application. Systems vendors... » read more

Signal Integrity Plays Increasingly Critical Role In Chiplet Design


Maintaining the quality and reliability of electrical signals as they travel through interconnects is proving to be much more challenging with chiplets and advanced packaging than in monolithic SoCs and PCBs. Signal integrity is a fundamental requirement for all chips and systems, but it becomes more difficult with chiplets due to reflections, loss, crosstalk, process variation, and various ... » read more

What Exactly Is Multi-Physics?


Multi-physics is the new buzzword in semiconductor design and analysis, but the fuzziness of the term is a reflection of just how many new and existing problems need to be addressed simultaneously in the design flow with advanced nodes and packaging. This disaggregation of planar SoCs and the inclusion of more processing elements, memories, interconnects, and passives inside a package has cr... » read more

Chip Architectures Becoming Much More Complex With Chiplets


The migration from monolithic SoCs to chiplet-based designs is creating a confusing array of options and tradeoffs for design teams working at the leading edge, and the number of choices is only going to increase as third-party chiplets begin pouring into the market. That hasn't dampened the appetite for chiplets, however, which are deemed essential for future generations of semiconductors f... » read more

Advanced Packaging: A Curse Or A Blessing For Trustworthiness?


In recent years, the issue of trustworthiness in electronics has become increasingly important, especially in areas where security is of the essence such as the automotive sector, industry, and critical infrastructure. These sectors depend on electronic systems that are not only powerful but also absolutely reliable and, above all, secure. This represents a major challenge, as the increasing co... » read more

Strain, Stress In Advanced Packages Drives New Design Approaches


Thermal and mechanical stresses are creating significant challenges in heterogeneous chiplet assemblies, increasing the time and cost required to work through all the possible physical effects, dependencies, and interactions, and driving demand for new tools. Unlike in the past, when various components were crammed into a planar SoC on a relatively thick substrate, the new substrates are bei... » read more

Automakers And Industry Need Specific, Extremely Robust, Heterogeneously Integrated Chiplet Solutions


Chiplets offer great potential for the automotive and industrial sectors, especially as these applications often have high performance requirements but are needed only in small quantities. The modular principle behind chiplets enables efficient design and production: individual components have to be produced only once and can then be flexibly combined to create tailored solutions. This offers m... » read more

Where Is The Software For Shift Left?


Co-development of hardware and software has been a dream for a long time, but significant hurdles remain. Neither domain is ready with what the other requires at the appropriate time. The earlier something can be done in a development flow, the less likely problems will be found when they are more difficult or expensive to fix. It may require both tool and methodology changes, so that a proc... » read more

Green ICT: The IoT World Also Needs Ecological Awareness


By Volkhard Beyer and Dirk Mayer Microelectronics support the fight against climate change and for a better environment; for example, by intelligently controlling drive units, ensuring optimal operation of energy systems, and monitoring the resource requirements of production processes. Unfortunately, however, the ICT sector itself is one of the fastest-growing emitters of greenhouse gase... » read more

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