Advanced Packaging and Chiplets Can Be for Everyone

By Boris Chau, Project Leader, Faraday Technology Corporation  
EETimes (November 29, 2024)

The chiplet revolution is upon us. What began in laboratories as multi-die science projects has eventually evolved. A giant company like AMD, Intel or Nvidia can produce—either at TSMC or, in Intel’s case, internally—a giant, startlingly expensive CPU or GPU multi-die assembly using advanced packaging to achieve remarkable density, power efficiency and performance.

However, the real promise of chiplets is something different: to democratize the design of complex silicon systems so that even systems developers and small-fabless semiconductor companies could develop them.

Today, there are both promising signs and notable obstacles to this vision. But I believe it is already possible for a modest design team to achieve a chiplet-based design today. However, that requires a good understanding of the variables involved and how to manage these in delivering the final design. Very likely today, this will involve using an external partner with that expertise.

This advance cannot come too soon. As the package becomes a critical factor in system performance, integrating multiple semiconductor dies—often designed and manufactured by different companies—within the same package will be essential.

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