Research into an end to end SiP design environment unveiled

CoSiP is described as the 'development of compact, highly miniaturised and energy efficient systems using the co-design chip package system'. The project, co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is due to be completed by the end of 2012. Infineon's partners are Amic Angewandte Micro-Messtechnik, the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration, the automotive electronics division of Robert Bosch and the corporate technology division and healthcare sector of Siemens. The five partners aim to create the foundations for the design tools needed for SiP development, the results it says will help ensure the optimal utilisation of existing and future technologies for SiP applications. According to the researchers, the development time for SiP designs could be reduced by at least one third. Siemens Healthcare and Corporate Technology will apply the research results in the field of medical technology, while Bosch will utilise the results in the automobile industry. Traditionally, it is customary to develop the three design domains of a SiP – chips, chip package and board – in sequence and independently of each other, often with no link up between chip development and the development of either the chip package or the board. Optimisation of each of three system components also took place in isolation. The partners predict system development will require the interdependent end to end co-design of chips, chip package and system, and says that the CoSiP research project paves the way for this. The four private enterprise project partners are funding about 50% of the CoSiP research project, while the German government's high tech strategy, the BMBF is providing the remaining funding as part of its Information and Communication Technology 2020 (ICT 2020) programme.