Pressures tilt wireless apps toward System-in-Package (SiP)

Jack Shandle, EE Times
(11/22/2006 1:04 PM EST)

System-in-Package (SiP) technology has begun to challenge SoC implementations as a high-level design strategy for selected wireless applications because of lengthening SoC design cycles and other factors.

Speaking at a meeting of the Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA), three representatives of chip design houses specializing respectively in Wi-Fi, UWB and WiMAX noted that the SoC vs. SiP decision is still a difficult one.

But as many of SiP's manufacturing and design-tool are being resolved, it is becoming a viable option in cases were a quick development cycle is needed, an advanced IC process technology node is to be utilized, when the system integrates multiple radios (cell phone, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, for example) or when the protocol to be instantiated in silicon has not had its final standards vote.

Winston Sun, a senior member of the technical staff at Wi-Fi chip vendor Atheros Communications, said that design cost and development time of SoC technology tends to rise exponentially as design complexity increases. On the other hand, Sun said, cost and development time track more or less linearly with design complexity with SiP technology.

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