IBM begins to give priority to the so-called 3D-structures - multi-chip packages semiconductor circuits. Crystals can be packed in different ways: in a column, on the same horizon, with some crystals with conventional substrate using the interconnect wiring, and finally, using the through-plated channels (TSVs). The company is aware that the transition to a smaller scale process technology at this stage is more expensive .
The company has repeatedly confirmed the readiness to work with TSVs-compounds. Basically, IBM became the first company to start to promote this idea, but in practice, perhaps the first of its wide use, Samsung started to release memory.
At the moment the conference International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) IBM representatives told about qualified 45nm server processor on SOI-substrate with integrated memory eDRAM, which is packaged in a single unit with two integrated SiGe BiCMOS-crystal transceivers. The capacity of the internal communication channels reached a value of 2 Tbit / s, which is more than a qualitative indicator promising work in this direction.
But there are problems. The main one - is the connections through channels . As copper has a different coefficient of thermal expansion than the semiconductor crystal, thick copper channels during heating can literally blow up the chip . Therefore the design of the processor requires a lot of high-rise architectural tweaks. Related Products :
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