Optically Coupled IC Chip Packages for Lower-Power Links
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In chiplet designs for system-on-a-chip (SoC), electrical paths between functional blocks are longer, leading to higher resistance, latency, power consumption, noise, and signal loss, which increases component size, complexity, and cost.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a semiconductor package with optically coupled IC chips, where a photonic chip modulates laser beams between IC chips, allowing optical communication that reduces power consumption, delay, and noise, enabling smaller, less complex, and cheaper components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If electrical communication paths are used between IC chips in a chiplet design, then the chips can be smaller and more integrated, but the resistance, latency, power consumption, noise, and signal loss increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces electrical signal transmission with optical signal transmission using laser beams. The laser device emits optical signals that carry data between IC chips, substituting the electrical communication infrastructure with an optical communication system, thereby reducing power consumption and signal loss while maintaining small chip sizes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a photonic chip as an intermediary component that modulates the laser beam according to electrical signals from the IC chip. This photonic mediator converts electrical signals to optical signals for transmission, enabling low-power optical communication while keeping the IC chip itself small and integrated.
2Adaptability or versatility
If electrical communication paths are used between IC chips, then integration is improved, but noise and signal loss increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent substitutes electrical signal transmission with optical signal transmission using laser beams. This replacement eliminates the noise and signal loss inherent in electrical pathways while maintaining the integrated chiplet architecture, as the optical signals travel through free space or waveguides between closely spaced chips.
Solution Approach 2:
The photonic chip acts as an intermediary that modulates the laser beam in response to electrical signals from the IC chip. This mediator converts electrical signals to robust optical signals that are less susceptible to noise and signal loss, preserving integration benefits while eliminating electrical communication drawbacks.
3Loss of energy
If optical communication is implemented with laser devices and photonic chips, then power consumption and noise are reduced, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the laser device, photonic chip with modulator, and IC chip into a closely integrated assembly. By combining these components in a compact configuration, the system achieves low power consumption and noise reduction while minimizing the overall complexity increase, as the components work together in a unified optical communication subsystem.
Solution Approach 2:
The photonic chip serves as an intermediary that bridges the electrical domain of the IC chip and the optical domain of the laser communication. This mediator handles the conversion and modulation functions, consolidating complexity into a single specialized component rather than distributing it across multiple separate systems.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Optical communication enables reduced component size, complexity, and cost, with lower power consumption and less delay, while minimizing noise and signal loss compared to electrical communication.
Implementation Method 1
A laser device overlies the carrier substrate, adjacent to the photonic chip and the second IC chip
Implementation Method 2
The photonic chip is configured to modulate a laser beam from the laser device in accordance with an electrical signal from the second IC chip
Implementation Method 3
The first IC chip comprises a photodetector configured to convert the modulated laser beam into an electrical signal
Data Source
AI summary
Various embodiments of the present disclosure are directed towards a semiconductor package comprising optically coupled integrated circuit (IC) chips. A first IC chip and a second IC chip overlie a substrate at a center of the substrate. A photonic chip overlies the first and second IC chips and is electrically coupled to the second IC chip. A laser device chip overlies the substrate, adjacent to the photonic chip and the second IC chip, at a periphery of the substrate. The photonic chip is configured to modulate a laser beam from the laser device chip in accordance with an electrical signal from the second IC chip and to provide the modulated laser beam to the first IC chip. This facilitates optical communication between the first IC chip to the second IC chip. Various embodiments of the present disclosure are further directed towards simultaneously aligning and bonding constituents of the semiconductor package.