Quilt Packaging Concept

Quilt Packaging

Quilt Packaging (QP) is a new microchip interconnection technology that incorporates conductive “nodules” fabricated on the sides of chips. These nodule structures can serve as extremely wide bandwidth, low-loss electrical I/O, enable sub-micron mechanical chip-to-chip alignment, and deliver a chip-to-chip gap as small as five microns. QP can be implemented in a variety of substrates, including Si, GaAs, SiC, GaN, SiGe, InP, GaSb and more.

When utilized for electrical I/O, QP nodules perform as if they were on-chip interconnects even though they run off-chip, having demonstrated less than 1 dB of insertion loss across the entire bandwidth from 50 MHz to 220 GHz. QP nodules are lithographically defined and can be fabricated in multiple geometries on the same side of a chip, from digital signal lines at 10 micron pitch, to “tuned” coplanar waveguides to power structures hundreds of microns wide, QP allows complete customization to optimize functionality.

Designing integrated circuits is an exercise in tradeoffs- how much circuitry should we put on a chip, what is the largest chip that remains economical, what circuit properties should we sacrifice in order to combine different technologies, what materials system should we choose, how should we conserve I/O structures, etc. Quilt Packaging is a revolutionary new way for systems integrators to achieve on-chip performance without the cost and trade-offs of large, complex system-on-chip designs. QP offers the ability to combine multiple and disparate chip technologies into an array of chips, each one optimized for performance and cost, interconnected along their edges by IIC’s patented QP technology to form a “quilt” of chips that retains the full benefits of each component in one monolithic-like system.

QP quilts are packaged just like an ordinary monolithic IC, and can be combined with other packaging approaches such bumping, wirebonding, and even TSV. Implemented at the wafer level, Quilt Packaging fabrication is very similar to a “via middle” approach and utilizes industry-standard tools and processes.