Heterogeneous Chip Integration for GHz Systems

Indiana Integrated Circuits, LLC (IIC) proposes to develop the customizable, high-performance microchip interconnect technology called Quilt Packaging (QP) to address NASA's requirement for high performance integration of heterogeneous microwave systems. QP is an affordable, scalable, patented edge-interconnect technology for joining microchips of disparate materials and/or process technologies into monolithic-like systems that perform electrically as if they were one chip. QP enables sub-micron chip-to-chip alignment, extremely small (< 10 micron) chip-to-chip gaps, and can be implemented in multiple substrate materials, including SiGe, GaAs, Si, InP, GaSb, SiC, GaN, and more. Quilt Packaging can enable extremely low-loss, wide-bandwidth integration of MMIC modules comprising disparate material systems and/or process technologies. QP has demonstrated less than 0.1 dB insertion loss up to 100 GHz, and under 1 dB out to 220 GHz. Initial reliability testing of QP chipsets have demonstrated no degradation or mechanical issues, having undergone thermal cycling from -40 C to 125 C for over 350 cycles and counting. In addition to excellent microwave performance, QP has the potential for decreasing system size, weight and power. The proposed effort will leverage previous work in GaAs and Si QP to demonstrate a heterogeneously integrated "quilted" chipset of SiGe, GaAs and/or InP chips. Resulting data from this Phase I will directly apply to the design, fabrication and demonstration of a functioning MMIC module in Phase II. Throughout Phase I consideration will be given to NASA system needs and transition to production-level Quilt Package chip fabrication with commercialization partners Research Triangle Institute and Northrop Grumman Corp. for manufacturing scale-up of Quilt Packaging enabled MMIC modules.