The Chip Insider®– Chiplets: a disruptive business model?

Summary:

Chiplets: a disruptive business model? It’s important to ask this question when chiplets are only a new technology. Loss of leadership by incumbents becomes unavoidable whenever a new technology metastasizes into a new business model. The last time this happened was after foundries appeared. Could chiplets be to foundries, what foundries were to IDMs? Let’s look at what’s similar and what’s not so similar…

The collision of the two forces that created the chiplet movement came from opposite directions: The first was moving downhill from the top of the stack at the system level. The second was moving uphill from the bottom at the chip level. They collided head-on like two freight liners and out of their trailers spilled chiplets. Unlike the foundry emergence, these two forces are complex…

So, are we sitting at the crossroads of a new paradigm shift, or will it be business as usual? I believe chiplets are the next paradigm shift that will lead to a new era for the semiconductor business. As for the question of if they are disruptive to the existing power players in the market, it depends on how agile they can be with the change. We can also see the foundry model shifting to adopt chiplets on a technical level. The question is, will they truly adopt it at a business level, meta-morphing from a wafer foundry to become a chiplet foundry? … Keep watching this space…

“A good plan, violently executed now is better than a perfect plan tomorrow” – General George S. Patton

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