Honda invents 3D chipset
Stack of chips makes you work faster
HONDA RESEARCH, the R&D unit of Honda Motors , has built a 3-D chip made from a smorgasboard of three different chips and actually got the thing to work. The chips are stacked on top of each other, in a sort of chip sandwich, which makes them more powerful and energy efficient, apparently.
There’s no technical term yet for this mixture of chips (although I’m sure if there is, reader James Driscoll will write and point out my mistake!) so let’s call this new invention a chip butty.
The chip butty prototype has a microprocessor, a memory chip and an analog-digital signal converter. Everything is stacked vertically and interconnected.
Stacking the three chips –as opposed to placing them side by side – allows the microprocessor to double its speed. Better still it uses 36 per cent less power as the wiring connecting the three chips is shorter.
A stack of chips is typically interconnected using metal bumps of metal put onto both surfaces of each chip. But in Honda's design only the bottom chip needs bumps, which penetrate the entire sandwich, like a wooden skewer through a club sandwich.
Originally desgined as high-performance chips for its Asimo humanoid robot, Honda is now looking to widen the chip butty’s application. Meanwhile all the other semiconductor manufacturers busy working on 3-D chips are stuck at the test chip stage. µ
Comments
Old News
you chaps might need to a little more research. There are atleast 6 companies who have been doing this for more than 5 years with commercially availble, high volume products.Keep up the good work!
all the best, Ashe
Stacked....
It's simply called a "stacked die" assembly, and they've been around a while now in the realm of mixed signal devices.The idea of skewering them together is neat, though.
And it is called..
..thru-silicon-via technology. They build on the stacked-die concept which conventionally allows only 2-chips to be stacked.Butty or Club?
The term "chip butty' might be a bit working class for the lofty aspirations of the semiconductor industry, perhaps "Chip Club Snadwich" would gain more acceptance.Of course the real breakthroguh won't occur until someone invents the "Chip California Sushi Roll"
chip on chip
technical term, when you put one chipon the back of the other, was called
'piggy-back' back in the days..
PMS stacked-die
Heat may not like going through so many layers so they had to keep the thermals under control. This will also contribute to the claim of being more energy efficient not because of the stacking but by necessity of successful stacking.The Club
I christen it "The Club" after your comment of it resembling a "Club Sandwich".I hope theres no trademark infringement with any product endorsed my "Tonya Harding".
hmmm club sandwich ,,, drool
Process is years old
Tezzeron Semiconductor had first done stacked silicon with connecting vias years ago. They actually are in limited production with a stacked memory part. They also demonstrated a stack with a uP, memory and controller all together. They can stack up to 30 wafer layers at a time.