14 DAY TRIAL // The Abu Dhabi investment group that bought the CPU FABs from AMD some time ago and renamed them Globalfoundries, is now investing $4,8 million (3,6 mil. Eur), along with Germany’s State of Saxony into semiconductor research.
The theme of the two-year research is a three-dimensional chip packaging, but it will dwell into multiple aspects of interest for the semiconductor industry.
Each of the two parties involved will come up with half of the money and will respectively host the research labs. The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology will host the Abu Dhabi laboratory, while the Technische Universität Dresden will lead development of the Saxony research center.
Initially, the staff will be comprised of around 10 or 12 graduate or Ph.D. students, while later, when the project becomes more elaborate, additional faculty members may be involved.
This move comes in the logic of ATIC’s broader emphasis on minimum electronic energy systems, in short MEES.
The Abu Dhabi site will research the minimum-energy/low-power features of 3D-integrated microelectronics, while the Dresden laboratory will study ways of interconnecting the 3D integrated micro components like TSV.
TSV comes from electronic engineering concept of “through-silicon via” and is practically a vertical electrical connection (via) (Vertical Interconnect Access) passing completely through a silicon wafer or die.
This way of interconnecting micro components is quite different from the standard 3D chip packaging IBM uses in their 3D MCM chip stacked implementations. Those 3D packaging solutions require an interposer and are significantly taller than TSV 3D-based designs.
“Dresden, Saxony has become the largest microelectronics hub in Europe, and we are pleased to strengthen our collaboration in driving the semiconductor industry forward. This working partnership is particularly significant as we work to establish Abu Dhabi as a global R&D hub. The areas of research Twin Labs will be addressing are promising and timely to the industry, and I am confident the intellectual property generated will be of great value to ATIC, Globalfoundries and Abu Dhabi,” said Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of ATIC.
