The growing energy consumption of artificial intelligence platforms makes it necessary to look for any opportunity to reduce it. There are not many options, and one of them was proposed by the German company Infineon Technologies. It was able to reduce losses in power semiconductors, which provide power to processors, components of AI platforms, and more. To achieve this, the company has mastered the technology of producing the world’s thinnest silicon substrates—twice as thin as the market ones.
Image source: AI generation Kandinsky 3.1/3DNews
Modern thin silicon wafers with a diameter of up to 300 mm have an output thickness of 40–60 microns. Infineon has developed a final polishing process that makes it possible to reduce the thickness of the wafer – the substrate for the future production of chips on it – to 20 microns. For comparison, the average thickness of human hair reaches 80 microns. To produce a silicon wafer with a diameter of 30 cm and a thickness of 20 µm, it is necessary to achieve perfection in all stages of production from cutting to grinding. According to Infineon, it is ready to implement these technologies for mass production of chips.
Infineon is among the semiconductor manufacturers that produce power components made from silicon, silicon carbide and gallium nitride. The use of materials beyond pure silicon allows us to create more efficient and powerful components for power supply subsystems and voltage and current conversion. This is extremely important in light of the growing consumption of everything. Using thinner wafers to make power chips will reduce substrate resistance by 50% and, overall, reduce power loss by 15%.
Processors and AI chips switch to substrate-side power delivered through vertical metallization channels. Reducing the length (height) of these channels in MOSFET circuits reduces their resistance and leads to improved efficiency and increased power density. At AI data center scale, this promises to be impressive savings in consumption. Infineon promises to provide new “thin” power chips to everyone within two years.