Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is joining with Intel and Samsung to define new industry standards for the next frontier in semiconductors: advanced chip-packaging technologies.

The world’s three largest chipmaking heavyweights revealed on Thursday (March 3) they will form a new consortium along with Qualcomm, Arm, Meta, Microsoft, and several other industry players, per a Nikkei report. The aim is to set standards for packaging and stacking, the final steps in the chipmaking process.

The development reflects the growing importance of chip packaging as chipmakers strive to gain the upper hand in the competitive industry. There are limits to the number of transistors that can be fit on a chip, so firms are now trying to optimize their products’ performance by packing and stacking chips in various combinations instead.

These chip combinations, or "chiplets," require a new packaging standard, which the consortium plans to name the "Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe)." This will aid collaboration across the packaging and stacking ecosystem.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved