Can we ensure reliability in the era of heterogeneous integration?

Abstract

The rise of the Internet of Things and the migrations of data, logic and applications to the cloud are driving an explosive growth in demand for communications bandwidth at low latency. The traditional path for decreasing power requirement, reducing size, reducing cost and increasing performance can no longer support the market demands as we near the end of Moore's Law. The only solution lies in bringing components closer together through packaging. This requires heterogeneous integration with diversity of materials, circuit types, architectures and processes. Decreases in power, latency and cost while increasing performance and physical density of bandwidth are enabled by bringing the photons closer to the transistors. The introduction of complex 2.5D and 3D heterogeneous SiP integration is just beginning and it can be a solution but there are many difficult challenges. Active photonics, electronic and plasmonic components must be integrated into the same package with passive devices, RF, sensors and MEMS. Ensuring reliability at the system level will be more than just KGD and KGI.