PoP, SiP, MCM, MCP or SoC? Assessing the mobile/embedded design tradeoffs

Vijay Malhi, STMicroelectronics
Dec 15, 2006 (12:15 AM)

Multichip packages (MCPs) have long met the need to pack more performance and features into an increasingly small space. It seems natural to see the extension of the memory MCP to include ASICs such as basebands or multimedia processors. But here, we run into the difficulties of development and ownership/reduction costs.

How do we address these problems?

Today, a package-on-package (PoP) concept is becoming widely accepted. Combo memory (flash and RAM) products combining multiple flash NOR and NAND with a RAM in a single package are widely used in cellphone applications. These single-package solutions are the MCP, system-in- package (SiP) and multichip module (MCM).

The MCP in cellphone applications began by combining what is now considered to be relatively low-density combinations, such as an 8Mbit flash and 2Mbit SRAM.

As the memory requirements of the cellphone grew, the flash density increased with the NOR flash and the introduction of the NAND, and the SRAM was replaced by the pseudo SRAM (PSRAM).

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