As China accelerates its efforts to become self-sufficient in semiconductors, the newly formed China Chiplet League introduced its own chiplet interconnect interface standard this week, it said. Digi Times A report citing a Chinese website Cai Lian ShrineThe new interface is intended to enable custom multi-chiplet designs developed by a China-based company and manufactured in the People’s Republic of China.
China’s own chiplet interconnect interface standard, also known as ACC 1.0 (Advanced Cost-driven Chiplet Interface 1.0), is being developed by a group of companies specializing in chip design, IP, packaging, testing and assembly services. The China Chiplet League appears to be coordinated by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Core Technology, but its exact role is not particularly clear. The ultimate goal of the China Chiplet League is to ensure that ACC 1.0 becomes a cost-effective and viable solution for Chinese chip designers.
Developing a standard for chiplets is especially important these days, as it becomes difficult and expensive for chipmakers to specifically increase transistor density every 18 months. The industry is slowly moving to multi-chiplet designs (5 nm Because large monolithic chips made in production nodes such as the following are prohibitively demanding). expensive).
One advantage of multi-chiplet designs is that they can be designed by different companies and manufactured by different foundries at different nodes. To develop a chiplet ecosystem, we ensure that chiplets from different vendors are compatible with each other, leading chip designers, manufacturers such as AMD, ASE, Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, Qualcomm, TSMC, etc. companies and packaging specialists have formed the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) Alliance. .
China’s semiconductor industry must also adopt chiplet designs. The main reason is that foundries such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hua Hong can only make chips using subsequent nodes, so those clients compete with companies that monolithically use TSMC’s cutting-edge nodes. because you can’t. I’m curious about the design. But with multi-chiplet designs, the possibilities are much higher.
On the other hand, it doesn’t make much sense for Chinese companies to adopt UCIe. Because the US government may restrict the export of advanced chiplets to the People’s Republic. Additionally, chiplets manufactured in advanced nodes of the 5nm class and above may not be physically and electrically compatible with chiplets manufactured in the 28nm manufacturing process.
In fact, the interdisciplinary Institute of Information Core Technology acknowledges that China’s industry is currently in the development stage and needs to keep up with the current global situation.
The organization emphasized the need for cooperation among Chinese suppliers across the entire supply chain, from upstream to downstream, to establish a comprehensive chiplet ecosystem. By fostering a virtuous cycle of downstream demand that drives upstream investment, the China Chiplet League can enable economies of scale in mass production and promote performance breakthroughs.
