14 DAY TRIAL // NEC Electronics, Elpida Memory and Oki Electric say that they have developed a new packaging technology that places eight memory chips and one controller chip in one vertical layout with the help of 3D interconnections. This is not a new idea but no one thought it was technically possible to glue memory chips together using 3D models. Until now.
The new technology brings a new connection form to older Dram chips. Each chip has more than 1,000 pins on each side connected to polysilicon electrodes built into the chips. The chips are then interconnected with the help of high-density microbumps spaced 50 micrometers apart. The entire package, including the controller chip seems to be rather compact and doesn't exceed actual memory packaging dimensions. The future devices are also said to have low power consumption due to the connectors that also act as power lines.
This idea could actually turn out to be a breakthrough in the Dram storage especially where more memory is needed. The multimedia sector should benefit the most here, especially because large memories could be integrated into system-on-package devices that could consume less power than the classical high capacity memory sticks.
Samsung has also worked at developing a way to interconnect chips using 3D models in order to develop terabit system-on-package products. And because they have some experience with non volatile storage devices that use 3D designs, they are the favorites in this race.
3D seems to start a new trend. First we have 3D transistors that are said to push the processing power even further into the future with the help of 45, 32 and finally 22nm processes. And now we have 3D memory modules. I wonder what will come out next.