TDK Corporation (TSE: 6762) announced today that subsidiary TDK Ventures, Inc. has invested in Singaporean tech disruptor Silicon Box and its innovative semiconductor chiplet packaging design and fabrication capabilities, which offers newfound standards in performance and scale. The company was founded by world leaders in semiconductor design and packaging technologies – co-founders Dr. Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai previously founded Marvell, while co-founder and CEO Dr. Byung Joon (BJ) Han was formerly CEO of STATS ChipPAC (acquired by JCET in 2015). Dr. Sutardja and Dr. Han combined have more than 800 US patents. TDK Ventures looks to partner with this superstar team to accelerate the most recent semiconductor packaging innovations to market through Silicon Box.
It has long been acknowledged within the semiconductor industry that energy efficiency and performance are losing pace with advancing demands for computing volume, especially with the meteoric rise of machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence (including generative AI). At its core, current semiconductor chips are hitting a wall in scalability, limited by conventional packaging approaches due to the energy cost associated with moving data between chips. Meanwhile, the development and manufacturing cost for chip designers have become cost prohibitive except for the most well-funded players.
Silicon Box is turning this approach on its head through its innovative semiconductor package design and fabrication method, which enables chiplets. Chiplets allow chip designers an alternative to relying on a single, monolithic chip for processing; by leveraging multiple smaller chips interconnected in a single package creating the equivalent of “system-on-a-chip” (SoC) in a package. This approach reduces the energy demands of moving data between different chips, since it is instead reduced to one chiplet, where each subsystem can be modular and perform specialized processes. The Silicon Box process in particular sets a new industry standard using large-format production for up to 8x more devices per production unit, with 90+% yield – compared to industry alternatives, which top out around 60%.
TDK Ventures is committed to finding and impact scaling technologies on the frontiers of innovation, whose contributions have the potential to build a better, brighter future for all of humanity. Silicon Box solutions represent significant progress and contribution to both digital and energy transformation, as their chiplet designs bring newfound performance and efficiency to the semiconductor and computing industries.
TDK Ventures’ President Nicolas Sauvage commented, “TDK Ventures is excited to partner with the world-class team at Silicon Box. Their standout chiplet design is making waves in the industry, and they already have a proven concept in a 750,000 square foot facility to support production. We are committed to supporting their success for a positive impact on the world.”
Silicon Box CEO Dr. BJ Han also discussed the partnership saying, “Teaming with TDK Ventures is ideal for us, and we are looking forward to continuing what has already been an incredible collaboration. We have significant synergies with many of their business units, and in addition to their investment, we are excited to engage with their extensive network, subject matter experts, and industrial base. Bring on the TDK Goodness!”