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Monolithic integrated circuits in planar technologies have long served as
a driver of the IC industry’s successes. For this period, trends in the
development of monolithic IC (MI) chips have been best measured by Moore's
Law, which counts the number of transistors that can be integrated in a
two-dimensional die area. Recently, a new IC landscape, best characterized
as Heterogeneous Integration (HI) of various functions into a single system
chip, has developed, motivated by the fast growth of Mobile-Intelligence
Appliances. Besides incorporating the growing MI and SoC trends, future
system chips will fully utilize multi-dimensional integration, within a
single package, of multiple dies that cover a variety of digital, analog,
memory and RF functions and technologies. Measurement of development trends
in this new era must focus on the number of functions per unit volume in a
limited footprint area, and the ability to achieve low operational energy.
Correspondingly, business models of IC companies, which have evolved from
vertical integration to horizontal segmentation, must change. In order to
meet the challenges of HI, they should adopt virtual vertical integration,
with multiple companies in clustered partnership operations. Interesting
parallels between technical and business activities in the emerging world
of heterogeneous integration in system chips will be presented, using
Taiwanese IC companies with their global partners, as examples.
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