Five Years in the Making

Introduction

Octavo Systems recently celebrated our fifth year in business! It has been an amazing time for us as we have utilized the concepts surrounding system-in-package (SiP) technology. It is moments like these that make it fun to look back on what has happened and also look forward to the next five years.

Octavo had its inception when three former Texas Instruments employees (Bill Heye, Masood Murtuza and myself – Gene Frantz) began to discuss where the semiconductor industry was going and how we could participate in its movement. Octavo came to life in 2015 when we teamed up with Green Source Holding LLC and several engineer colleagues of ours. The name “Octavo” references the 15^th century technology that made early printing available to the broader public by miniaturizing and reducing the cost of books. In that same vein, Octavo’s vision is to change the rules of electronics design and manufacturing so advanced technology is available to everyone by reducing the size and cost of integrated systems.

The Opportunity

We noticed the beginning of a transition in the semiconductor industry being driven by two issues. First, Moore’s Law was, once again, at its end. Second, System-on-Chip (SoC) integration was nearing its limits, unable to combine on one silicon die all of the necessary components of a system. Both limitations were the result of the natural evolution of semiconductor manufacturing. That is, the processors, memories, power management and analog circuits were no longer using a compatible manufacturing processes, making homogeneous integration onto a single SoC more and more difficult.

The Octavo Solution

Our “aha” moment came as we realized that we could solve both of these issues with a transition from integrating on silicon to integrating with silicon. Today we call it “heterogeneous integration” using System in Package (SiP) technology.

SiP provides the ability to integrate into a single semiconductor package a system of devices, both active (integrated circuits) and passives (resistors, capacitors and inductors). The innovation is in the packaging aspect of the semiconductor process rather than the creation of the semiconductor device. The solutions we envision contain processors, memories of different sorts (processors, FPGAs, EEPROMS, Flash, etc.), power management devices (PMICs), OpAmps, A/Ds, D/As, sensors, and, of course, passive devices. The goal of heterogeneous integration is to reduce the size and cost of the resulting system while increasing its performance.

Now for a bit of the story that got us to where we are today.

Creating our first product

Our first product, the OSD335x, was based on the AM335x from Texas Instruments. As former TI employees, we had many friends in the company. After discussion with the technical team at TI, we identified the benefit of integrating the AM335x processor, memory, and power management into a single package. We put together the schematic, the bill of material and, with those two items in our pockets, visited the business unit at TI who was responsible for the AM335x. The marketing manager, Adrian Valenzuela, who was a friend, was initially not certain we could make it happen. But he was willing to take a chance and make the wafer of the AM335x and the power management devices available to use. His parting words were something like “good luck and come see me when you have something working.” About six months later we returned with working SiPs in hand.

The conversation went something like:

Adrian: “does it work?”

Us: “yes”

Adrian: “at full speed?”

Us: “of course”

At this point in the meeting, the topic of conversation quickly moved to pricing, availability and how we would cooperate with each other to bring this new SiP to Market.

Pursuing the future of semiconductor technology

With that first device functioning, we began to pursue our vision of using heterogeneous integration and moving from System on Chip (SoC) to System in Package (SiP) as the ultimate integration platform.

By integrating multiple IC components on a substrate and manufacturing them using standard semiconductor assembly and test methodology, we are bringing our vision to fruition. Octavo’s SiPs bring system miniaturization at a lower system cost to more companies than ever before. Our goal is to create a new market segment in the semiconductor business sector. This new segment solves the two issues that led us down this journey by continuing Moore’s Law through integrating more transistors on a substrate instead of on silicon. It will utilize heterogeneous integration to take “SiP Ready” IC components and integrate them with other components to create a single highly integrated system in a single IC package.

Our portfolio of products has begun to exemplify that vision. That original device, the OSD335x, integrated multiple circuits, each of which was a SoC in its own right, along with the passives necessary to create a functional system component. It integrated over 100 separate components into a single 27mm X 27mm package. It was followed by the OSD335x-SM which provided even more functionality, integrating an additional EEPROM, in smaller 21mm X 21mm package. Since then we have added a third device to the OSD335x family and have introduced the first in a family of SiPs based on ST Microelectronics, the OSD32MP15x.

Without making any announcements, it is obvious that we have just started the pursuit of our vision and will continue to exploit System in Package technology to bring the next significant wave of semiconductor integration to system designers of all sizes and shapes.

Contact Us if you would like to learn more about Octavo, System-in-Package, our Products, or our Vision.

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