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Why Multi-Die Systems?

According to ÁùºÏ²ÊÖ±²¥¿ª½± Chair and CEO Aart de Geus, multi-die systems enable semiconductor companies to implement heterogeneous dies or chiplets on different process nodes.

¡°The processor needs to be as fast as possible,¡± de Geus said during his  opening the SNUG Silicon Valley 2023 conference. ¡°Other [components] can be manufactured in older, better yielding, easier technologies.¡±

As de Geus explains, multi-die systems are having a massive impact on the industry and empowering designers to deliver advanced silicon with more computation and transistors. ÁùºÏ²ÊÖ±²¥¿ª½± President and COO Sassine Ghazi expressed similar sentiments during a , noting that multi-die systems continue to spark a tremendous amount of excitement across the industry.

Semiconductor companies, says Ghazi, can now efficiently disaggregate chips and cost-effectively stack components¡ªwith 2.5D and 3D techniques¡ªin different locations on the same package. ¡°Once you get into manufacturing, packaging, and testing, there is a new wave of complexity with lots of runway for industry innovation,¡± he adds during the Q&A session.

According to Patrick Moorhead, founder, CEO, and chief analyst at global technology consulting firm Moore Insights & Strategy, multi-die systems allow semiconductor companies to optimize the design of customized and differentiated processors. ¡°People are looking at more custom silicon as a way to differentiate what they bring to the table, [and] that¡¯s what businesspeople should be looking at,¡± he explains in the report. ¡°Chiplets enable smaller companies with smaller pocketbooks to use semiconductors for unique competitive advantage.¡±

As Moorhead points out in the report, innovation isn¡¯t nearly as capital intensive or as resource dependent with multi-die systems. ¡°It doesn¡¯t take five years to get to market,¡± he states. ¡°You¡¯re shaving off at least a year, maybe two years, if you have a chiplet implementation because you¡¯re not spending time hardening the monolithic design.¡±

Multi-Die Systems Facilitate Cross-Industry Collaboration

For many years, semiconductor companies reliably secured their respective market positions by pushing engineers to the next process node. However, the slowdown of Moore¡¯s law prompted companies to re-evaluate chip design with multi-die systems and re-envision their participation in the wider semiconductor ecosystem.

To be sure, multi-die systems are creating exciting new partnerships, opportunities, and standards including Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCle). This open specification for die-to-die interconnects between dies or chiplets is rapidly gaining popularity and sparking innovative multi-die designs across the industry. Chip foundries like TSMC help foster this innovation¡ªalthough the company doesn¡¯t design products. To successfully manufacture multi-die systems for its customers, TSMC works closely with ecosystem partners to facilitate collaboration between players in chip design, materials, testing, and packaging.

¡°We create a technology platform and allow our customers to innovate on it,¡± Kevin Zhang, senior vice president of business development, TSMC, explains in the report. ¡°We bring in different product players¡ªincluding fabless design companies, system companies, for example¡ªto develop a product that can be seamlessly integrated with our underlying technology and create innovative products to deliver significant benefits to the end users.¡±

As Zhang notes in the report, TSMC offers a family of chip stacking and packaging technologies, called TSMC 3DFabric?, to address some common chiplet design challenges. ¡°We¡¯ve developed a broad portfolio of different ways to integrate multiple chips together,¡± he elaborates. ¡°[With 3D stacking], you can create a system with high-bandwidth interconnects between the chips while maintaining very small form factors.¡±

In the future, Zhang says in the report, multi-die systems will become a ¡°prevailing way to bring more function and more capabilities together to achieve better system-level performance and power efficiency.¡±

While multi-die systems aren¡¯t a new concept, it is fast gaining traction across the semiconductor ecosystem. According to Ghazi, if late 2022 was an inflection point for multi-die systems, 2023 looks to be the year when these architectures really take off.

¡°We¡¯re not talking about the industry just trying to test the water¡ªit¡¯s well beyond that,¡± he emphasizes in the report, noting that ÁùºÏ²ÊÖ±²¥¿ª½± is currently tracking hundreds of unique systems designed around multi-die architecture.

¡°The need is there, the push from industry is absolutely there,¡± Ghazi concludes in the report. ¡°What makes it exciting is the innovation we¡¯re seeing across the chain¡ªfrom architecture all the way to manufacturing¡ªand how we¡¯re collaborating to optimize the whole technology stack so multi-die systems can reach scale across global markets.¡±