This article discusses the conceptual specification phase of multichip system design. The automation of conceptual design practices will decrease design and manufacturing risks by allowing system designers to view the entire performance design space early in the design cycle prior to the initiation of traditional physical design activities.

This article describe a software tool that performs interdisciplinary trade-off analysis and partitioning for multichip systems including multichip module (MCMs) and traditional assemble approaches. The tool concurrently computes physical, electrical, thermal, reliability, testability, and cost performance metrics for multichip systems. This tool also allow a large fraction of possible design, technology, material, test, and manufacturing approaches a to be explored before decisions are made and resources committed.

An example set of trade-off results are presented which examine the trade-off between peripheral I/O format die and area array I/O format die in an MCM, as a function of partitioning a fixed functionality into a variable number of die.
 

Complete article is available to CALCE Consortium Members.

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