Breaking Into The Third Dimension Of Computer Chip Design

HomeScience ReportsReports and NewsInformation Technology

Breaking Into The Third Dimension Of Computer Chip Design

26.11.2003

Despite continuous technical advances in the semiconductor industry, microchips are still composed of laterally-arranged (side-by-side) transistors on a silicon substrate. EUREKA project E! 2259 VSI developed new ways to break through this two dimensional approach and the restrictions it imposes by designing 3-D chips or Vertical System Integration (VSI).

This technology has immediate security benefits which are very desirable since chip cards often contain secure information or monetary values and, therefore, are subject to attack by hackers. “With the new technology, the top sides of the chips are inside the 3-D stack and therefore not accessible to mechanical attacks, electrical probing or a lot of other physical attacks,” says Wolfgang Gruber of Infineon Technologies AG, the German lead partner.

Infineon appreciates the co-operation a EUREKA project brings. "EUREKA helped us to find an equipment manufacturer with the necessary know how and skills that are only available in a few companies around the world," explains Gruber. "The EUREKA label is a quality label most people associate with a sophisticated research project of high quality – a big advantage when it comes to convincing someone about your ideas!”

Increased flexibility

Using the 3-D chips, it is cheaper and easier to realise mixed technologies in a range of applications such as next-generation 3G mobile phones, smart cards and ’intelligent cars’.

The Austrian partner Datacon developed the machinery to construct the 3-D chips. “Through our close co-operation with Infineon we were able to produce a machine that could exceed the state-of-the-art in terms of production speed and accuracy,” says Christoph Scheiring, Manager of Advanced Technology at Datacon.

The partners have developed two versions of the 3-D stacking. The first will be ready for production in 2004, and is “a cost-efficient, two-layer technology called ’Solid Face to Face’ (F2F), in which one or more chips are attached and in contact with a base chip by a soldering process.” Gruber explains, “a demonstration chip card with a huge amount of memory capable of fulfilling requirements for future multi-application operating systems has been built.”

Work continues on the second version - a multi-layer technology based on F2F that will allow for wiring through a chip to the next chip, thus making stacks of three or more layers possible and further increasing the chip’s flexibility and security. This is due to be ready for production in 2007.

Nicola Vatthauer | alfa
Further information:
http://www.eureka.be/success-stories

All articles from Information Technology >>>

The most recent press releases about innovation >>>

Die letzten 5 Focus-News des innovations-reports im Überblick:

Im Focus: Future electronic components to be printed like newspapers

A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.

The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses...

Im Focus: First evidence on the source of extragalactic particles

For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.

To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...

Im Focus: Magnetic vortices: Two independent magnetic skyrmion phases discovered in a single material

For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.

Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...

Im Focus: Breaking the bond: To take part or not?

Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.

A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...

Im Focus: New 2D Spectroscopy Methods

Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.

"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....

All Focus news of the innovation-report >>>

Top

Send this article

Forum for Science, Industry and Business