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Wafer Stacking Technology Promises Faster, Denser System-On-a-Chip (SOC)
Tachyon Semiconductor and Los Alamos National Laboratories Explore Applications Naperville, IL - June 10, 2002 - A novel wafer-stacking process developed by Tachyon Semiconductor offers unprecedented speed and density advantages for multi-functional "System-On-a-Chip" (SOC) devices. These advantages have attracted the attention of Los Alamos National Laboratories, resulting in an agreement to explore and define the production of 3-D integrated devices. At present, SOC devices are manufactured by building many different types of circuitry onto a single silicon wafer. Forcing disparate elements onto one wafer invariably leads to process compromises and prevents any meaningful optimization. Tachyon's wafer stacking process allows different circuitry elements to be built on several separate wafers, each wafer fully optimized for its specific components. The finished wafers are stacked, bonded, and interconnected with thousands of through-silicon "vias" to create a fully integrated device. This process was labeled as a "top new technology" in Electronic Design magazine's 2002 Top Ten Forecast. Tachyon Semiconductor Corporation has been sub-contracted by the University of California and Timension Inc. (of Mountainview, CA) to adapt its technology for use in devices being developed by the US Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL). Under the agreement, Tachyon will produce a report detailing the production of an SOC device with separate layers for the microprocessor, flash memory, FPGA (programmable logic), and DRAM (mass memory). Scott Johnston, Tachyon's Director of Engineering, states: "Our team is thrilled to be working with an organization like Los Alamos National Laboratories. Their reputation as one of the world's premier research and development labs makes it especially exciting for us to be helping them to apply our stacking technology." Tachyon Semiconductor Corporation is a privately held fabless semiconductor and engineering design services company that has developed significant intellectual property concerning stacked memory and SOC integrated circuits. To find out more about Tachyon's technology, check out www.tachyonsemi.com on the World Wide Web.
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