Gates Add Functionality, But Wires Create Problems


Key takeaways: While transistors see continuous improvement, wires keep getting worse because of the smaller geometries and larger chip sizes. There are limited ways to avoid such problems, but the biggest impact will come from floorplanning. Analysis today is not adequate. New developments, such as backside power and 3D integration, provide temporary relief but new materials are a d... » read more

Facilitating Complex SoC Design Through Automation And Integration


The design demands of today’s highly advanced system-on-chip (SoC) devices have long outgrown the capabilities of manual workflows to manage them effectively. As these chips become more complex, only sophisticated, high-performance, and scalable automation can ensure that every component of the SoC functions seamlessly. The SoC integration challenge A fundamental aspect of SoC design is the... » read more

TSV Complexity Leads To Manufacturing Bottleneck


Key Takeaways: Through-silicon vias are the biggest enabler of 3D chip stacking and chip-to-PCB connections through silicon interposers. The AI boom is causing HBM and advanced assembly shortages, straining the supply chain. Optimization around etch, fill and reveal help reduce TSV cost. Through-silicon vias (TSVs) provide essential interconnects between DRAM dies inside hig... » read more

Chiplet Standards Aim For Plug-n-Play


Key Takeaways Die-to-die chiplet standards are only the beginning. Many more standards are necessary for a chiplet marketplace. A number of such standards have either had initial versions released or are in progress. Existing work covers packaging, a system architecture, various design kits, a universal link layer, and updates to BoW. Today’s chiplets exist in silos. In a ... » read more

Impact of Surface States And Band Modulations in Ruthenium Interconnects (Incheon, Hanyang, UT Dallas)


A new technical paper, "Role of surface states and band modulations in ultrathin ruthenium interconnects," was published by researchers at Incheon National University, Hanyang University and UT Dallas. Abstract "Mitigating the RC delay from transistor miniaturization is essential for next-generation devices, driving a focus on interconnect electrical performance. Current copper-based inte... » read more

Scaling AI Infrastructure: Overcoming Interconnect Bottlenecks Via CPO And Heterogeneous Integration


The rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has surpassed the capabilities of traditional monolithic compute architectures. The industry is shifting toward a systemic approach, where large-scale distributed clusters of GPUs/AI accelerators function as a single, unified computational engine to support the next generation of trillion-parameter models. Co-packaged optics (CPO) offers s... » read more

Pathfinding Method That Models ECC Overhead for Chiplet Interconnects (UCLA)


A new technical paper, "Link Quality Aware Pathfinding for Chiplet Interconnects," was published by researchers at UCLA. Abstract "As chiplet-based integration advances, designers must select among short-reach die-to-die interconnect technologies with widely varying shoreline and areal bandwidth density, energy per bit, reach, and raw bit error rate (BER). Meeting stringent delivered BER ... » read more

Wafer-on-Wafer Hybrid Bonding: Reticle Placements To Achieve Efficient NW Topologies (ETH Zurich)


Researchers from ETH Zurich published the new technical paper "Network Design for Wafer-Scale Systems with Wafer-on-Wafer Hybrid Bonding." Abstract "Transformer-based large language models are increasingly constrained by data movement as communication bandwidth drops sharply beyond the chip boundary. Wafer-scale integration using wafer-on-wafer hybrid bonding alleviates this limitation by p... » read more

AI Energy Gap And Chiplets: Why Data Movement Matters


At the recent Chiplet Summit 2026 preconference tutorial, the panel session, “Best Way to Make Chiplets Work,” brought together leaders from across the semiconductor ecosystem to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in advanced system design: how do we make heterogeneous, multi-die systems operate as a cohesive, energy-efficient whole for AI? While much discussion focused on st... » read more

An Explosion In Interconnect Complexity


For decades, electronics offered two levels of routing structure to manage signals that originate or terminate in an integrated circuit. Recently, that number has risen to five, and while it adds far more flexibility for structuring electronic equipment, it also brings greater complexity and ratchets up the number of design decisions needed to complete a project. This transition has been evo... » read more

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