System-on-a-chip challenged by stacked system-in-a-package technology

摘要

System chip technology has hit a wall, and so has the system chip business, Indeed, some wonder if system chips may turn out to be just a niche market. Improving process technology usually means chip performance/unit cost roughly doubles every year, but the system chip has fallen off this curve. The technical problems of combining different processes on one chip mean the system chip lags behind the latest standalone versions of its individual components.