Chiplets: Opportunities and Challenges for the Semiconductor Industry

“Chiplets” are an increasingly popular design approach upending traditional development, manufacturing, and supply chain processes across the semiconductor industry. They promise a new pathway for companies to keep pace with Moore’s Law, reduce development risk, and more rapidly spawn customer-centric or application-specific silicon solutions. Chiplets, however, introduce a host of operational challenges for individual companies and the industry as a whole as the processes to design, validate, test, and coordinate large-scale manufacturing of chiplet-based designs is inherently more complex. Significant process and value chain re-engineering is ultimately required across business functions and supply chain networks as chiplet-based products proliferate across the industry. Success in harnessing this technology inflection will come to those who can operationally adapt to the new complexities ahead of everyone else or stimulate ecosystems dedicated to chiplet-based designs.