System-in-Package: Electrical and Layout Perspectives
By Lei He, University of California, USA, lhe@ee.ucla.edu | Shauki Elassaad, Stanford University, USA, shauki@stanford.edu | Yiyu Shi, Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA, yshi@mst.edu | Yu Hu, University of Alberta, CANADA, bryanhu@ece.ualberta.ca | Wei Yao, University of California, USA, weiyao@ee.ucla.edu
Abstract
The unquenched thirst for higher levels of electronic systems integration and higher performance goals has produced a plethora of design and business challenges that are threatening the success enjoyed so far as modeled by Moore's law. To tackle these challenges and meet the design needs of consumer electronics products such as those of cell phones, audio/video players, digital cameras that are composed of a number of different technologies, vertical system integration has emerged as a required technology to reduce the system board space and height in addition to the overall time-to-market and design cost. System-in-package (SiP) is a system integration technology that achieves the aforementioned needs in a scalable and cost-effective way, where multiple dies, passive components, and discrete devices are assembled, often vertically, in a package. This paper surveys the electrical and layout perspectives of SiP. It first introduces package technologies, and then presents SiP design flow and design exploration. Finally, the paper discusses details of beyond-die signal and power integrity and physical implementation such as I/O (input/output cell) placement and routing for redistribution layer, escape, and substrate.
System-in-Package
With the increasing scalability of semiconductor processes, the higher-level of functional integration at the die level, and the system integration of different technologies needed for consumer electronics, System-in-Package (SiP) is the new advanced system integration technology, which integrates (or vertically stacks) within a single package multiple components such as CPU, digital logic, analog/mixed-signal, memory, and passive and discrete components in a single system. System-in-Package: Electrical and Layout Perspectives focuses on electrical and layout perspectives, as opposed to discussing thermal and mechanic characteristics of SiP. It first introduces package technologies, and then presents SiP design flow and design exploration. Finally, the paper discusses details of beyond-die signal and power integrity and physical implementation such as IO (input/output cell) placement and routing for redistribution layer, escape, and substrate. System-in-Package: Electrical and Layout Perspectives is an invaluable reference for EDA researchers, professionals and graduate students.
