Taipei, July 25, 2008 (CENS)--The government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) co-organized a consortium to develop 3D IC technology with nine semiconductor companies from overseas and Taiwan.

The organization, christened Advanced Stacked-System Technology and Application Consortium (Ad-STAC), aims to develop 3D-stacked IC technology, which enables direct stacking of thinned integrated circuits while realizing through-die area array interconnects between them with an extremely high density.

The idea of the technology comes from addressing the difficulty in moving IC lithography technology further forward from 32-nanometer node, according to ITRI`s executives. They said the technological bottleneck would move backward the occurrences of generation crossover of sub 32-nm processes. So far, the crossover has roughly happened every two years, a cycle first cited by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965.

According to Yi-jen Chan, chairman of the consortium and general director of ITRI`s Electronics and Optoelectronics Research Laboratories, the consortium now has 15 members, including PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC), Nanya Technology Corp., Siliconware Precision Industry Co., Ltd., ProMOS Technologies Inc., Micronix International Co., Ltd., and BASF. Executives from Taiwan Semiconductor, MediaTek Inc. and Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. attended the July 23 inauguration ceremony of the consortium although these heavyweights have not joined the body.

Chan said the association would introduce several products as the platforms for 3D stacking IC process technologies and his organization would provide verification platforms.

ITRI Chairman Chin-tay Shih pointed out that 3D IC process would meet the need of highly integrating system ICs and wireless designs onto a silicon. He noted the technology would prompt ecosystem of semiconductor industry to reshape.

Market Projection of IC System and Stack Packaging
Year	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	CAGR
Stack packaging	790 million chips	996 million chips	1.1 billion chips	1.3 billion chips	1.5 billion chips	21.6%
System packaging	732 million chips	927 million chips	1.1 billion chips	1.2 billion chips	1.4 billion chips	21.7%

Sources: Taiwanese chip companies

(by Ken Liu)