SoCs are 'dead,' Intel manager declares

ToshiroOC · Feb 13, 2003, 07:35 AM

The system-on-chip movement is "dead," ambushed by the cost of additional mask layers needed to marry digital logic with memory and analog functions, Intel Corp. architecture manager Jay Heeb told the International Solid-State Circuits Conference on Tuesday (Feb. 11). Rather than SoCs, the chip industry will move instead to 3-D devices distantly related to today's stacked packages, he said.

Heeb, who manages Intel's Xscale processor core design effort in Chandler, Ariz., made his comments at an ISSCC session on the future of integrated circuits for 3G mobile phones. "The SoC is dead because of too many mask layers," he said. "We need to be bolting the optimum technologies together in what I call a So3D, a system-in-3D package. Then we can tune an application to a specific, optimum substrate."

Allowing that he hesitated to use the word "package" (because 3-D integration is much more than that), Heeb said he prefers to call semiconductor die "pass through elements" that would be linked by "molecular velcro, or capacitive coupling."

Heeb acknowledged that Intel's current cellular phone chips include on-chip flash memory, which require additional mask layers. While that device is appropriate for today's wireless phone market, he said the 3G phones that come to market in 2010 will be much more memory-intensive and will require a different approach.

--By David Lammers, source: Silicon Strategies

Article can be read here.

Feb 13, 2003, 07:35 AM	#1
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	SoCs are 'dead,' Intel manager declares The system-on-chip movement is "dead," ambushed by the cost of additional mask layers needed to marry digital logic with memory and analog functions, Intel Corp. architecture manager Jay Heeb told the International Solid-State Circuits Conference on Tuesday (Feb. 11). Rather than SoCs, the chip industry will move instead to 3-D devices distantly related to today's stacked packages, he said. Heeb, who manages Intel's Xscale processor core design effort in Chandler, Ariz., made his comments at an ISSCC session on the future of integrated circuits for 3G mobile phones. "The SoC is dead because of too many mask layers," he said. "We need to be bolting the optimum technologies together in what I call a So3D, a system-in-3D package. Then we can tune an application to a specific, optimum substrate." Allowing that he hesitated to use the word "package" (because 3-D integration is much more than that), Heeb said he prefers to call semiconductor die "pass through elements" that would be linked by "molecular velcro, or capacitive coupling." Heeb acknowledged that Intel's current cellular phone chips include on-chip flash memory, which require additional mask layers. While that device is appropriate for today's wireless phone market, he said the 3G phones that come to market in 2010 will be much more memory-intensive and will require a different approach. --By David Lammers, source: Silicon Strategies Article can be read here.