TOKYO – Saki Corporation, an innovator in the field of automated optical and X-ray inspection equipment, is pleased to announce that its Shanghai Solution Center now offers the complete line up of inspection solutions with the addition of its award-winning, state-of-art X-ray automated inspection system (AXI) 3Xi-M110.

Since the relocation of Saki China’s Shanghai office in August 2023, the demonstration area has undergone continual enhancements. With the addition of its 3Xi-M110 X-ray machine to the lineup of demonstration equipment that features an AXI 3Xi-M200, ideal for IGBT power module inspection, and advanced optical inspection solutions, Saki has established a Solution Center that is fully equipped to address client requests for demos and queries about its services.

The latest 3Xi-M110 is a high-speed, high-precision 3D-CT X-ray inspection system designed for today’s demanding SMT and through-hole manufacturing requirements. It boasts the industry’s fastest processing speeds and superior 3D inspection quality for the detection of the full spectrum of solder defects on PCBs. Offering full in-line capability, self-diagnostics and unparalleled ease of maintenance, Saki’s latest 3D CT-AXI provides all the key functionality essential for quality X-ray inspection including serviceability and ease of maintenance.

The 3Xi-M110 model inherits the high-definition image inspection quality of its predecessor, while optimizing the entire image capture process from hardware control to image calculation algorithms to achieve the industry’s fastest cycle time. It is the ideal solution for smart factories that require in-line X-ray inspection for total inspection of PCBs mounted with electronic components.

“We invite customers to visit us in Shanghai to experience the industry's finest automatic X-ray inspection system, which combines high inspection quality and speed performance while maintaining operator-friendly operation, high maintainability, and ease of maintenance,” said Mr. Yi Zhang (Andy), who oversees sales at Saki China.

To request a demonstration of Saki's complete total inspection line solutions, please call the Saki Shanghai office on +86-21-6282-2266 or visit the Saki website at www.sakicorp.com/contact/ 

CAMBRIDGE, UK – Advanced semiconductor packaging technologies like 2.5D and 3D hybrid bonding, along with emerging solutions like silicon photonics, are critical in optimizing system performance and fostering the next wave of AI and HPC chip innovation.

The "Advanced Semiconductor Packaging 2024-2034: Forecasts, Technologies, Applications" report recently published by IDTechEx explores the evolving landscape of semiconductor packaging, with a focus on 2.5D and 3D hybrid bonding packaging. It covers technology trends, industry challenges, and the advancements made by key players while forecasting market trends in the semiconductor packaging sector.

Large Language Models (LLM) challenges:

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) marks a milestone in AI, revolutionizing natural language processing (NLP) and related fields. Models like OpenAI's GPT series demonstrate high accuracy in understanding, generating, and translating human language. While they find diverse applications, they also present challenges.

LLMs have seen exponential growth in the model size, from 340 million parameters in BERT-L in 2019 to 1.76 trillion parameters in the upcoming GPT-4. This expansion results in high computational complexity, with GPT-4 requiring over 1010 petaFLOPS. Compared to other neural networks, LLMs demand significantly more computational resources; for instance, training GPT-3 takes 3841 GPU hours versus 11 hours for a ResNet-60 (a convolutional neural network used for image classification). LLMs have low operational intensity, meaning they rely heavily on matrix-vector operations. This requires moving more data to perform the same number of arithmetic operations. Memory bandwidth is thus critical for their performance.

Ways to improve system bandwidth:

In recent years, there's been a gap between the rapid rise in processor compute density and the slower increase in memory bandwidth. This "memory wall" issue results in processors frequently waiting for data, leading to underutilization and posing a substantial challenge to future performance improvements.

NVIDIA and AMD have introduced NVLink and Infinity Fabric technology, respectively, to enhance CPU-GPU interconnectivity, which is crucial for improving bandwidth between logic components.

The incorporation of next-generation High Bandwidth Memories (HBMs), which consist of multiple vertically stacked DRAM dies connected by through-silicon vias (TSVs), into architectures offers a substantial boost in logic-to-memory bandwidth. While previously confined to GPUs, HBMs are now being integrated with CPUs, bridging the bandwidth gap between CPU and traditional DRAM. AMD's Instinct MI300 exemplifies this trend by integrating advanced HBMs with both CPU and GPU in a single package. 2.5D semiconductor packaging technologies like TSMC's Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS) play a crucial role in increasing the number of I/O (Input/Output) points while reducing interconnect length between logic and memory components, enhancing performance and reducing latency. However, emerging HPC workloads, particularly those related to AI training, demand even higher memory bandwidth (over 45x) due to frequent memory accesses. Increasing I/O speed can indeed enhance HBM's bandwidth, but it's limited due to increased power consumption.

To address this, new processor designs have focused on increasing on-chip SRAM capacity, as it's situated near the processing chips, enabling higher bandwidth with denser interconnects and lower latency. Initial implementations used 3D hybrid bonding packaging technology to bond an SRAM die over a logic die at a 9 μm pitch, tripling SRAM capacity. Further bandwidth improvements involve continuously decreasing the hybrid bonding pitch from 9 μm to 0.4 μm, leading to a substantial over 300-fold increase in bandwidth density.

Co-packaged optics is another approach that is gaining significant momentum in recent years. Optical communication offers several advantages over traditional electrical signal transmission. It boasts lower transmission loss, reducing signal degradation over distances. Furthermore, optical communication is less susceptible to crosstalk, which occurs when signals interfere with each other, leading to data errors. Additionally, optical signals can achieve higher bandwidth compared to their electrical counterparts, making them ideal for data-intensive applications.

To summarize, for the next generation AI compute system, high logic-to-logic and logic-to-memory bandwidth are crucial development trends. Advanced semiconductor packaging technologies like 2.5D and 3D hybrid bonding, alongside emerging solutions like optical communication, are pivotal for enabling this growth and overcoming computational challenges.

IDTechEx's new report, "Advanced Semiconductor Packaging 2024-2034: Forecasts, Technologies, Applications", delves into the dynamic landscape of 2.5D and 3D packaging, analyzing technology trends, industry barriers, key player’s technology roadmap, and market forecasts. Gain invaluable insights into not just AI and HPC applications but also 5G/6G, autonomous vehicles, and consumer electronics sectors, understanding how advanced packaging shapes their trajectory. With unbiased analysis and detailed market evaluations, this report provides a comprehensive understanding of the industry's future, making it essential reading for stakeholders navigating the evolving semiconductor landscape.