Abstract
Universal chiplet interconnect express (UCIe) is an open industry standard interconnect for a chiplet ecosystem in which chiplets from multiple suppliers can be packaged together. The UCIe 1.0 specification defines interoperability using standard and advanced packaging technologies with planar interconnects. Here we examine the development of UCIe as the bump interconnect pitches reduce with advances in packaging technologies for three-dimensional integration of chiplets. We report a die-to-die solution for the continuum of package bump pitches down to 1 µm, providing circuit architecture details and performance results. Our analysis suggests that—contrary to trends seen in traditional signalling interfaces—the most power-efficient performance for these architectures can be achieved by reducing the frequency as the bump pitch goes down. Our architectural approach provides power, performance and reliability characteristics approaching or exceeding that of a monolithic system-on-chip design as the bump pitch approaches 1 µm.
Similar content being viewed by others
Main
On-package integration of multiple dies has been widely deployed in commercial products. Examples include central processing units such as Intel’s Sapphire Rapids1 and AMD’s EPYC and Ryzen2, and general-purpose graphics processing units such as Intel’s Ponte-Vecchio3 and Nvidia’s Hopper4. Tactically deployed for decades5,6, this approach using chiplets—smaller chips that when packaged together realize the function of a larger chip—can meet ever-increasing compute demands and overcome die reticle limits and yield challenges in advanced process nodes. Rapid progress in advanced packaging technology7,8,9,10,11,12 has allowed designers to interconnect chiplets on-package and keep Moore’s law13 going.
Beyond overcoming reticle limits and yield challenges, there are various additional compelling reasons for the use of on-package chiplets14,15,16,17. These include lower overall portfolio cost, where reuse of chiplets helps avoid intellectual property porting costs that are exploding with advanced process geometries18, while also taking advantage of the lower costs associated with using more mature process nodes. There is also a time-to-market advantage as new chiplets can be added or substituted while reusing the old, which reduces design and validation cycles14. Bespoke solutions are also possible where system-in-package (SiP) variants are created by mixing chiplets with new capabilities with existing chiplets into a package. This provides an open plug-and-play infrastructure similar to PCI Express19,20 and Compute Express Link (CXL)21 offerings at the board level14.
Universal chiplet interconnect express (UCIe)15 is an open industry standard interconnect offering high-bandwidth, low-latency, power-efficient and cost-effective on-package connectivity between heterogeneous chiplets (Fig. 1a). Future three-dimensional (3D) packaging architectures are expected to scale bump pitches lower than the historical minimum values of around 90–110 µm for organic packages and around 10–55 µm for enhanced two-dimensional (2D) architectures18,22,23. Recent work in this area has investigated the impact of various packaging options on the power, performance and area of the die-to-die (D2D) implementation of a set of reference system-on-chip devices24.
In this Article, we consider how UCIe should evolve as bump pitches shrink in emerging advanced packaging architectures11,12,22,23 and report a D2D solution for the continuum of package bump pitches down to 1 µm. For our approach, we provide the corresponding circuit architecture details, as well as detailed performance analysis. We also consider what needs to be done to enable use of our approach to construct SiPs of the future.
UCIe 1.0 specification overview
UCIe 1.0 defines two types of packaging (Fig. 1b): standard (UCIe-S) and advanced (UCIe-A). The standard package is used for cost-effective performance. The advanced packaging is used for power-efficient performance.
UCIe 1.0 is a layered protocol (Fig. 1c)14,15,16,17. The physical layer (PHY) is responsible for the electrical signalling, clocking, link training, sideband, circuit architecture and so on. UCIe supports different data rates, widths, bump pitches and channel reach to ensure the widest feasible interoperability, as detailed in Extended Data Table 1. The basic unit is a module comprising N single-ended, unidirectional, full-duplex data lanes (N = 16 for UCIe-S and N = 64 for UCIe-A), one single-ended lane for validation, one lane for tracking, a differential forwarded-clock per direction for the main band. The sideband consists of two single-ended lanes (one data and one 800 MHz forwarded-clock) per direction. The sideband interface is used for status exchange to facilitate link training, register access and diagnostics. Multiple modules (1, 2 or 4) can be aggregated to deliver more performance per link (Fig. 1d).
The D2D adaptor is responsible for reliable delivery of data through its cyclic redundancy check and link level retry mechanism14,15,16,17. When multiple protocols are supported, the adaptor defines the underlying arbitration mechanism. A 256-byte flow control unit defines the underlying transfer mechanism when the adaptor is responsible for reliable transfer. PCI Express and CXL protocols are mapped natively, as those are widely deployed at the board level across all segments of compute. Optical UCIe chiplets can transport CXL off-package to connect the processing and memory elements with high-bandwidth, low-latency and low-power connectivity to realize the vision of tightly coupled composable systems at the rack and pod level that are not possible with 2 m copper cables14,15,16. There is also provision to support other proprietary protocols as streaming protocols. UCIe also supports raw mode for applications such as connection to a high-speed serializer–deserializer (SERDES) die or a modem. In this case, raw bits are passed, bypassing the D2D adaptor by connecting to the raw D2D interface, as there is a complete protocol stack associated with that external interconnect on the main die side. Extended Data Table 1 summarizes the characteristics and the target performance metrics of UCIe 1.0.
Approach for UCIe-3D
In current applications, Chiplets are interconnected within a package both laterally (2D, 2.xD) and vertically (3D). Here, 2D refers to a standard organic packaging solution, while 2.xD refers to an advanced packaging solution with higher density connections. Some compute devices referenced earlier in this paper have chiplets laterally connected with 2D interconnects6 or 2.xD (ref. 1). Memory device manufacturers have used 3D interconnected chiplets for more than a decade25,26. A combination of both 2.xD and 3D examples also exist6, combining the advantages of both lateral and vertical interconnect. One recent key trend—especially for 3D packaging technologies, such as hybrid bonding (HB)—has been the aggressive shrinking of the bump pitches between the chiplets and the consequent reduction of the corresponding interconnect distances and their associated electrical parasitics11,12,22,23. As bump pitch decreases, the area under the bump reduces, and the number of wires for a given area increases as a square of the bump pitch reduction. With orders of magnitude in wire density increase and area reduction, an architectural approach completely different from UCIe 1.0 should be pursued. When architected correctly, as demonstrated with our approach, interconnected chiplets with these low bump pitches will offer better latency and power characteristics than large monolithic dies and will offer the same benefits that Moore’s law has provided with reduced transistor sizes for over 50 years.
We suggest the next generation of UCIe will continue to be unidirectional, supporting both 2.xD and 3D connectivity, running at the chiplet internal frequency or even a lower frequency. We refer to our proposed next generation of UCIe as UCIe-3D. Our approach will result in orders of magnitude improvement in bandwidth and power efficiency over the existing UCIe 1.0 specification. The lower frequency and short distance make the circuits simpler; they will fit within the bump area and operate with lower power. Since this interconnect will have a lower bit error rate (BER) due to the short distance and low frequency, we propose to remove the D2D adaptor completely.
Our vision is that two chiplets will connect using multiple independent modules, with each UCIe-3D PHY directly controlled by the Network-on-Chip controller (NoC) (Fig. 2a). The common functionality across all PHYs is orchestrated by a common control block in the chiplet to amortize the overhead (Fig. 2b). The PHY is implemented using a square bump layout with dedicated subclusters for data versus non-data (address, error correction code (ECC), spares and so on). Repairing around defects is managed at the NoC and chiplet level (Fig. 2a–d).
The PHY architecture for UCIe-S and UCIe-A is based on a forwarded-clock (source synchronous), parallel input–output (IO) structure with most of the building blocks constituted as high-speed complementary-metal-oxide semiconductor circuits. A typical speed for the logical interface to the PHY runs at 2 GHz (ref. 15). Thus, at 32 GT s−1 operation, there is a 16:1 serialization and 1:16 deserialization (SERDES) factor between the logical interface and the PHY transmitter/receiver (TX/RX) operation across the package interconnect. Running at sufficiently high SERDES factors is critical when packaging interconnect is practically limited by layer count and IO bump pitch as more data needs to travel across each package wire. As the bump pitch decreases, for example, from 110 µm for UCIe-S to 45 µm for UCIe-A, a substantial increase in D2D bandwidth as well as silicon area bandwidth density is realized. For UCIe-3D, this bandwidth trend further accelerates to a point where it is more efficient to run the IO at the native NoC frequency without the need for any SERDES.
We suggest the elimination of the D2D adaptor and simply having the NoC directly interface with the UCIe-3D circuits. The NoC designer will set the supply voltage level to the appropriate value to meet the needs of the NoC logic timing. The most efficient UCIe-3D interconnect will be one that can operate on the same supply as the NoC to avoid any special supply requirements. We suggest a lean D2D data path that consists simply of a retiming flop stage at the UCIe-3D TX bump followed by an appropriately sized inverter driver to meet its own up-to-5 V charged-device model (CDM) electrostatic discharge (ESD) requirement (via parasitic diodes), as well as the slew rate requirements across the HB connection into the RX inverter and ESD on the other die. We anticipate a move to 0 V CDM requirement as bump pitches get down to 3 µm so that the UCIe-3D PHY fits within the bump area. Figure 3 and Extended Data Table 2 show the evolution of UCIe PHY architecture from the -S and -A variants to the UCIe-3D solution.
The UCIe-3D approach is amenable to synthesis and automatic place-and-route tools and adaptable to a wide range of floor plans. It will be highly desirable to enable static timing analysis for timing closure for the D2D crossing, and to facilitate that we suggest specifying timing at the HB bump boundary and continuing with the forwarded-clock architecture of UCIe-S and UCIe-A to establish a set of clock-to-data specifications at bump pins.
Since the same architecture is used across both sides of the 3D connection, asymmetric bandwidth needs can be addressed by simply arraying different number of IO modules for each side of the connection. The TX, RX and clock circuits are simple inverters, creating a matched data and clock path with data launched at rising clock edge and captured with the corresponding forwarded falling clock edge. The forwarded-clock source is the same as the NoC clock source and is shared on both dies to avoid the power and latency issues associated with clock domain crossings. At bump pitches approaching 3 µm and below, we expect that a fractional NoC frequency (FNF) D2D crossing may be advantageous for power optimization. For example, a D2D crossing at 1 µm bump pitch running at a native NoC frequency of 4 GHz may consume more power than running twice the number of wires at 2 GHz. Standard loopback schemes such as near end (within die) or far end (at the D2D crossing) will need to be incorporated into the overall data path to enable detection of defects at sort testing before assembling multiple dies within a package.
Analysis of UCIe-3D
We next analyse the efficiency of the UCIe-3D approach and present the results from our implementation on an Intel process node (see Methods for further details).
As bump pitch scales, the theoretical bandwidth density can be calculated using these formulae:
For example, for pitch = 9 µm, bump density = 12,346 bumps mm−2 and assuming data rate = 4 GT s−1, theoretical bandwidth density = 6,173 GB s−1 mm−2. Considering the practical overheads, power and ground bumps, and bump efficiency due to a hex versus square bump pattern, equation (2) becomes
where
Here, the overhead for data bumps is assumed to be ~3% (16 lanes for a given 512-bit bus (TX + RX)) to accommodate sideband, clocks, track and valid signals. Hex pattern has been assumed for 2D and 2.xD, while for fine pitch bonding, a square pattern is assumed. The repair is managed at the network and cluster levels, as explained previously. Our estimate for repair overhead is 10%, given the multiple link connectivity across two dies. For comparison, the repair overhead today for 2.xD is around 3%. The Power ground overhead in equation (5) remains consistent even at tighter bump pitches. At higher bump pitches, the maximum data rate is higher, which forces the need for additional ground bumps for isolation and adequate signal integrity. At lower pitches, the current per bump is limited due to drawn dimensions, necessitating additional power and ground bumps for robust power delivery. It is well understood that as interconnect technologies continue to evolve, the need for additional power bumps can diminish and help increase achievable bandwidth density. Theoretical, realizable and FNF bandwidth densities with these overhead assumptions and for bump pitches from 128 µm to 1 µm have been plotted in Fig. 4. These plots show that the theoretical bandwidth density at 9 µm pitch is same as the realizable bandwidth density at 3 µm pitch or the FNF bandwidth density at 2 µm, showing the impact of the various overheads and the need for continued improvement in interconnect technologies to achieve tighter bump pitches. Curve fitting the points from the above equations results in the following equation to predict the realistic bandwidth density for any bump pitch with realistic overheads:
FNF enables us to disaggregate system-on-chip devices further without crossing the thermal limits of the SiP and helping the key performance indicators (KPIs), including power-performance-area of the product. At 9 µm, the max frequency of 4 GT s−1 has been assumed (in accordance with the UCIe-3D approach) and in Fig. 4a,b. However, with FNF, we will limit max speed to 2 GT s−1 from <9 µm to 2 µm and 1 GT s−1 at 1 µm. This will still enable ×2 bandwidth density increase as pitch goes from 9 µm to 1 µm, while saving a sizeable portion of power, as explained in the power section below.
Equation (6) has good correlation and fit to the practical implementations we have designed and helps extrapolate bandwidth density to a wide range of pitches that can be used by UCIe-S, UCIe-A and UCIe-3D. Enough overlaps have been given in the range considered for curve fitting to keep the boundaries between 2D, 2.xD and 3D interconnect regions flexible.
With disaggregation spanning around multiple cuts along multiple axes, minute changes in D2D power quickly add up at the system level. A D2D link complicates the timing between two dies and hence increases the need for additional complexity of the IO and testing, as explained in earlier sections. Where the two dies can be completely different process or material, or even the same process but operated at different voltages, optimized for performance, the total number of components in the data path increases. Additional complexities—including standalone die testing and yield recovery of defects using lane repair—will also add more components on the data path. In addition to these, ESD adds a notable component, a capacitor, to the D2D crossing. Figure 5 shows the D2D power as a function of bump pitch (for 2D, 2.xD and 3D regions) and the power distribution of the UCIe-3D link at 9 µm and 3 µm bump pitches.
With the UCIe-3D (that is, quasi-monolithic) architecture, the latency adder can be a couple of flops on both sides of the die, allowing maximum flexibility for the two dies to be on two different processes or voltages. With adequate tool development, it is also possible to converge timing across two dies and reduce the latency further to look like monolithic IO. As the bump pitch shrinks, the distance from the controller to the bump reduces, enabling us to remove stage flops and make the 3D crossing look monolithic. Besides the lower circuit and logic latency, there are architectural performance benefits with 3D stacking of dies. Overall hop latency is reduced and provides higher bandwidth, compared to the planar arrangement (monolithic, 2D or 2.xD interconnects). Figure 6 summarizes the performance for compute elements implemented as an ideal monolithic die (with no yield or reticle constraints) versus chiplets connected using UCIe-3D, both using mesh topology with identical bandwidth per hop. We use an ideal monolithic die for KPI performance comparison, since it outperforms UCIe 1.0-based chiplet designs. Similar trends will exist for other applications, such as memory or a combination of compute elements and memory.
Finally, for reliability, we use failure in time (FIT), which is the number of failures in 109 hours. Ideally, a chiplet should have a FIT ≪ 1 for all its UCIe links combined so that the contribution of the links is an exceedingly small fraction of the typical FIT in a chiplet (100’s). While we expect the chiplet to have error detection and correction that goes unchanged in the UCIe links, we have ignored any form of ECC and that all lanes in all the links are active at the same time to obtain a pessimistic estimate of FIT. We suggest that the specified BER be 10−30; this will result in a FIT of 3.6 × 10−4 for 100 Tb s−1 bandwidth (Methods). With the built-in error detection and correction logic in each chiplet, this number will be orders of magnitude lower, even for a target of 10−27 BER, as demonstrated subsequently with an example.
Conclusions
We have reported UCIe-3D, a power-performance efficient and cost-effective method for constructing SiP architectures using emerging advanced 3D packaging technologies with shrinking bump pitches. UCIe-3D offers superior performance with lower latency, higher bisection bandwidth and lower bandwidth demand than planar implementations of 2D and 2.xD interconnects or even a large monolithic die.
Our approach could be used to create powerful SiPs. In particular, the UCIe-3D approach could be used to create multiple 3D heterogeneous compute stacks—each with their own local memory chiplets, multiple on-package memory stacks and external I/O and memory chiplets—all connected internally across and through existing UCIe 1.0 interconnects. In this architecture, each chiplet can be connected to the chiplet above or below in a face-to-face, face-to-back, back-to-face, or back-to-back configuration27. In non-face-to-face connection scenarios, signals would need to travel through silicon vias. Further exploration is required into the development of silicon-via manufacturing and assembly technologies that can scale with the bump-pitch range and introduce negligible electrical parasitics while preserving the KPIs at current levels.
Additional challenges are also likely in the areas of cooling, power delivery and reliability. The thermal demands of emerging 2.5D and 3D packaging architectures in terms of an increase of the hotspot peak power densities compared to average values have already been highlighted18. Additional 3D-stacked chiplets will only exacerbate this problem and will require more advanced cooling capabilities. The power delivery for such an architecture is also expected to create new issues, and an increased reliance on technologies such as backside power delivery is likely28,29. For reliability, there will be a need for repair strategies, along with reduced electrostatic discharge protection requirements for the assembly processes30.
Finally, advances in electronic design automation are necessary. The need for such design automation capabilities has been highlighted previously27, and further innovations31 are required to create true mix and match architectures.
Methods
Reliability calculation
We will first calculate the FIT assuming no error correction or detection. We also assume that all the UCIe links are running at full bandwidth all the time. Thus, any bit error over time would be considered fatal and potentially cause silent data corruption (SDC). The FIT here denotes the SDC component only, since there is no detection.
Let pber denote the probability of a bit error and b denote the total bandwidth demand in terabits per second across all UCIe links for a given chiplet. Let n denote the number of bits in 109 hours. Thus,
Since FIT is the probability that no failures happen over 109 hours, and given that we are not taking advantage of any error detection or correction, we can express FIT as:
For 100 Tb s−1 bandwidth, b = 100. Thus, from equation (8), with a pber of 10−30, we obtain a FIT of 3.6 × 10−4.
Next, we provide an example assuming that the chiplets have an inherent (137, 128) single error correct, double error detect code that will correct all single bit flip and detect all double bit flips in the code word of length 137 bits. Let c denote the number of codewords in 109 hours:
The probability that a code word will be received correctly is the probability of 0 or 1 errors in the code word. Any even errors will be detected, which are categorized as detected uncorrected error (DUE). Any odd number of errors, 3 or more, has a chance of aliasing to either a valid code word or correcting a bit and potentially causing an SDC event. For simplicity, given the low BER, we will calculate the probability of a code word causing DUE to be the probability of 2 errors (pcode-due) and a code word causing SDC to be the probability of 3 errors (pcode-sdc), as follows:
If pber is 10−30 and b is 100 Tb s−1, FIT(SDC) = 1.1 × 10−50 and FIT(DUE) = 2.45 × 10−20; if pber is 10−27 and b is 100 Tb s−1, FIT(SDC) = 1.1 × 10−41 and FIT(DUE) = 2.45 × 10−14, which is still acceptable.
Performance calculations
We will do the calculations assuming an \({n}_{x}\times{n}_{y}\) 2D mesh and an \({{n}_{x}\times{n}_{{y}}\times{n}_{{z}}}\) 3D mesh. If n is the total number of nodes, then \(n={n}_{x}\times{n}_{{y}}\) for the 2D mesh and \(n={n}_{{x}}\times{n}_{{y}}\times{n}_{{z}}\) for the 3D mesh topology. The 2D mesh is a special case of 3D mesh, where \({n}_{{z}}=1\). The maximum number of hops is \((n_{{x}}-1)+({n}_{{y}}-1)+({n}_{{z}}-1)=({n}_{{x}}+{n}_{{y}}+{n}_{{z}}-3)\), between nodes {0, 0, 0} and \(\left\{(n_{{x}}-1),(n_{{y}}-1),({n}_{{z}}-1)\right\}\).
The average distance (in hops or in nanoseconds) or power between any source–destination pair in a 2D or 3D mesh can be obtained by summing the distance between all source–destination pairs \(\left\{i,j,k\right\}\) and \(\left\{a,b,c\right\}\) multiplied with the appropriate weight (\({w}_{x},{w}_{y},{w}_{z}\)) and dividing by the total number of source–destination pairs \(n\times\left(n-1\right)\) as follows:
The bisection bandwidth is the number of links for any cross-section with half the number of nodes on either side. For planes parallel to the x–y, y–z and x–z planes, the number of links are \({n}_{{x}}{n}_{{y}},\,{n}_{{y}}{n}_{{z}}\) and \({n}_{{x}}{n}_{{z}}\), respectively.
Bandwidth distribution across links
For the routing in the mesh, to ensure deadlock freedom, the message traverses in the shortest x-distance first, then the shortest y distance, followed by the shortest z distance. Thus, the path from node (0, 1, 1) to node (3, 3, 3) is (0, 1, 1) → (1, 1, 1) → (2, 1, 1) → (3, 1, 1) → (3, 2, 1) → (3, 3, 1) → (3, 3, 2) → (3, 3, 3). For a node with 6 neighbours in a 3D mesh, there are two links each on the x, y and z directions, one connecting to a node that is 1 greater in that dimension and the other that is 1 lower in that dimension. We derive the equations for the increasing dimensional links, and the respective decreasing dimensional links are identical. For any node (a, b, c) in the increasing x dimension, traffic comes from \((a+1)\) nodes (that is, nodes (0, b, c), (1, b, c), … (a, b, c)) that route through the link (a, b, c) to (a + 1, b, c), denoted as Lxa, targeting any node (x, y, z) where x > a, since the x dimension is routed first. That means we have \((n_{{x}}-a-1)\times{n}_{{y}}\times{n}_{{z}}\) destination nodes that are routed through Lxa. Thus, node (a, b, c) in its increasing x dimension gets traffic between \(\left(a+1\right)\times(n_{{x}}-a-1)\times{n}_{{y}}\times{n}_{{z}}\) source–destination nodes. Similarly, in the increasing y and z dimensions of node (a, b, c) we get traffic between \(\left(b+1\right)\times{n}_{{x}}\times({n}_{{y}}-b-1)\times{n}_{{z}}\) and \(\left(c+1\right)\times{n}_{{x}}\times{n}_{{y}}\times({n}_{{z}}-c-1)\) source–destination nodes, respectively. The results reported in Fig. 6 are based on computing using this methodology for the bandwidth distribution.
Methods for leakage reduction and active power reduction
As bump pitch shrinks, the distance between the drivers gets reduced, resulting in a reduction of the total number of repeaters. Going from 9 µm to 3 µm, for the same shoreline and bandwidth targets, the total depth reduces by the square of the pitch. Aligning the shoreline to the controller reduces latency and the need for fan-out of signals. For example, with a shoreline of 1 mm and bandwidth of 800 GB s−1, the depth of the PHY with 50% overhead on power and ground is ~350 µm. At 3 µm bump pitch, the depth of the PHY reduces to 50 µm for the same shoreline. At 50 µm depth, the total number of repeaters and flops needed reduces drastically. Clock distribution power reduces by area scaling, reducing the number of stages of clock distribution for the same number of bits. We also observed that the TX power reduces, since the bump dimensions get reduced from 9 µm to 3 µm HB.
Referencing the external UCIe specification, the total power contribution due to D2D (with all the overheads and logic needed for standalone testing) is 0.25 pJ b−1 at 0.5 V running at 16 GT s−1. Since the 3D link is a much simpler interface compared to D2D IO operating at 16 or 32 GT s−1, the VCC can be substantially lowered to help power savings. The power savings due to voltage reduction is substantial, irrespective of the inherent differences due to the design, underlying process technology, and variations due to process, voltage, and temperature, in the power calculation, due to the VCC^2 scaling factor.
Method for bandwidth density curve fitting
A detailed examination of the curve in Fig. 4 reveals that one curve does not fit all the spectrum of bandwidth densities from 130 µm down to 1 µm. The reason for this is that the repair ratio is different and the power ground overhead is different, and hence the equations cannot predict bandwidth densities as one continuous function. The inset in Fig. 4c shows that extrapolating 130 µm (the 2D region) down to 1 µm requires numerous extrapolations, amplifying the error. Extrapolating 65 µm (the 2.xD region) down to 1 µm is more accurate at discrete points compared to extrapolating 130 µm down to 1 µm; however, there is still error in curve fitting at other points along the curve, especially for realizable bandwidth density that can be achieved with correct overhead and power/ground ratios. In summary, we started with two graphs, one for 2D + 2.xD regions down to 65 µm and one for 2.xD + 3D regions from 65 µm down to 1 µm. We tried fitting both graphs in power series, as area scaling to bump pitch is almost a power series, and the corresponding equations appear in the inset of Fig. 4c, one for 65 µm down to 1 µm, representing 2.5D and 3D regions, and the second for the entire region of 130 µm down to 1 µm.
Care needs to be taken in terms of assembly and defects (particle size, clean room) and in future work, it will be possible to reduce the overhead ratio to achieve more bandwidth density. Industry-wide research might always show that the theoretical bandwidth density is sufficiently high, but as intuitive as it may seem that no more bump shrink or new technologies are needed, the need for bandwidth density with practical approaches in real products will help drive the need for further technological improvements and bump shrink with different technologies, and this in turn will also reduce the gap between the theoretical bandwidth density and the realizable bandwidth density at fine pitches.
Data availability
The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
Nassif, N. et al. (2022) Sapphire rapids: the next-generation Intel Xeon scalable processor. In 2022 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) Vol. 65 (ed. Fujino, L. C.) 44–46 (IEEE, 2022); https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSCC42614.2022.9731107
Burd, T. et al. Zeppelin: an SoC for multichip architectures. 2019 IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits 54, 40–42 (2019).
Jiang, H. Intel’s Ponte Vecchio GPU: architecture, systems & software. In 2022 IEEE Hot Chips 34 Symposium (HCS) (ed. Rusu, S.) 1–29 (IEEE, 2022); https://doi.org/10.1109/HCS55958.2022.9895631
Choquette, J. NVIDIA Hopper H100 GPU: scaling performance. IEEE Micro 43, 9–17 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1109/MM.2023.3256796
Dudeck, G. & Dudeck, J. Design considerations and packaging of a Pentium(R) Pro Processor based multi-chip module for high performance workstation and servers. In 1998 IEEE Symposium on IC/Package Design Integration (Cat. No.98CB36211) (ed. Sipple, R. S.) 9–15 (IEEE, 2002); https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDI.1998.663613
Douglas J. Intel 8×× Series and Paxville Xeon-MP microprocessors. In 2005 IEEE Hot Chips XVII Symposium (HCS) Vol. 9 (ed. Garb, G.) 1–26 (IEEE, 2005); https://doi.org/10.1109/HOTCHIPS.2005.7476602
Mahajan, R. et al., Embedded Multidie Interconnect Bridge—A Localized, High-Density Multichip Packaging Interconnect, in IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology, 9, 1952-1962, Oct. 2019, https://doi.org/10.1109/TCPMT.2019.2942708
Lee, L. C. T. et al. Advanced HDFO packaging solutions for chiplets integration in HPC application. In 2021 IEEE 71st Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) (ed. O'Conner, L.) 8–13 (IEEE, 2021); https://doi.org/10.1109/ECTC32696.2021.00013
Hou S. Y. et al. Integrated deep trench capacitor in Si interposer for CoWoS heterogeneous integration. In 2019 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) (ed. De Salvo, B.) 19.5.1–19.5.4 (IEEE, 2019); https://doi.org/10.1109/IEDM19573.2019.8993498
Huang P. K. et al. Wafer level system integration of the fifth generation CoWoS®-S with high performance Si interposer at 2500 mm2. In 2021 IEEE 71st Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) (ed. O'Conner, L.) 101–104 (IEEE, 2021); https://doi.org/10.1109/ECTC32696.2021.00028
Lau J. H. Recent advances and trends in advanced packaging. IEEE Trans. Compon. 12, 228–252 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1109/TCPMT.2022.3144461
Zhang S. et al. Challenges and recent prospectives of 3D heterogeneous integration. E-Prime-Adv. Electr. Eng. Electron. Energy 2, 100052 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prime.2022.100052
Moore, G. E. Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Electronics, 38, 114–117 (1965). Reprinted in IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Newsletter 11, 33–35 (2006); https://doi.org/10.1109/N-SSC.2006.4785860
Das Sharma, D. Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe): building an open chiplet ecosystem White paper (UCIe Consortium, 2022).
Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) Specification Rev 1.0, Feb 17, 2022; www.uciexpress.org/specifications
Das Sharma, D. System on a package innovations with Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) interconnect. IEEE Micro 43, 76–85 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1109/MM.2023.3235770
Das Sharma, D., Pasdast, G., Qian, Z. & Aygun, K. Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe): an open industry standard for innovations with chiplets at package level. IEEE Trans. Compon. 12, 1423–1431 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1109/TCPMT.2022.3207195
IEEE Electronics Packaging Society Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap, 2021 Edition. IEEE (2021). https://eps.ieee.org/hir
PCI-SIG, PCI Express® Base Specification revision 5.0, version 1.0, May 28, 2019. https://members.pcisig.com/wg/PCI-SIG/document/13005
PCI-SIG, PCI Express® Base Specification revision 6.0, version 1.0, Jan 11, 2022. https://members.pcisig.com/wg/PCI-SIG/document/16609
CXL Consortium, Compute Express Link 2.0 Specification. https://members.computeexpresslink.org/wg/CXL/document/1172(2020).
Elsherbini, A. et al. Enabling next generation 3D heterogeneous integration architectures on intel process. In 2022 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) (ed. Hoentschel, J.) 27.3.1–27.3.4 (IEEE, 2022); https://doi.org/10.1109/IEDM45625.2022.10019499
Liang, S. W. et al. High performance and energy efficient computing with advanced SoIC™ scaling. In 2022 IEEE 72nd Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) (ed. O'Conner, L.) 1090–1094 (IEEE, 2022); https://doi.org/10.1109/ECTC51906.2022.00176
Hwang, Y., Moon, S., Nam S. & HoonAhn, J. Chiplet-based system PSI optimization for 2.5D/3D advanced packaging implementation. In 2022 IEEE 72nd Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) (ed. O'Conner, L.) 12–17 (IEEE, 2022); https://doi.org/10.1109/ECTC51906.2022.00010
Lee, D. U. et al. A 1.2V 8Gb 8-channel 128GB/s high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacked DRAM with effective microbump I/O test methods using 29nm process and TSV. In 2014 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers (ISSCC) (ed. Fujino, L. C.) 432–433 (IEEE, 2014); https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSCC.2014.6757501
James, D. 3D ICs in the real world. In 25th Annual SEMI Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC 2014) (ed. Ne'eman, I.) 113–119 (IEEE, 2014); https://doi.org/10.1109/ASMC.2014.6846988
Chiang, C. & Sinha, S. The road to 3D EDA tool readiness. In 2009 Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ed. Ishihara, T.) 429–436 (IEEE, 2009); https://doi.org/10.1109/ASPDAC.2009.4796519
Natarajan, S. ‘Intel Accelerated’ Webcast (Replay). Intel www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-accelerated-webcast-livestream-replay.html#gs.ezui39 (2021).
Prasad, D. et al. Buried power rails and back-side power grids: Arm® CPU power delivery network design beyond 5nm. In 2019 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) (ed. De Salvo, B.) 19.1.1–19.1.4 (IEEE, 2019); https://doi.org/10.1109/IEDM19573.2019.8993617
A case for lowering component level CDM ESD specifications and requirements, Rev 3.0. White paper (Industry Council on ESD Target Levels, 2021); www.esdindustrycouncil.org/ic/en/shared/industry-council-white-paper-2-rev3.0-may-2021-final.pdf
Bailey, B. True 3D-IC Problems. Semiconductor Engineering https://semiengineering.com/true-3d-ic-problems/ (2023).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
D.D.S. crafted the overall vision and architecture for the next generation UCIe, including its applications and key required characteristics and also did the performance and reliability calculations. G.P. developed the circuit architecture for UCIe-3D and all its corresponding details described in the paper. S.T. performed the bandwidth density, power, performance and reliability calculations and predictions. K.A., with D.D.S., developed the mapping between UCIe-3D architecture and required package technologies and crafted the vision for future SiP architecture using UCIe-3D.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Electronics thanks Lihong Cao and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Extended data
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Das Sharma, D., Pasdast, G., Tiagaraj, S. et al. High-performance, power-efficient three-dimensional system-in-package designs with universal chiplet interconnect express. Nat Electron 7, 244–254 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01126-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01126-y