Why advanced packaging is needed
When one monolithic die hits reticle, yield, and cost limits, integrating compute dies, IO dies, and HBM through dense packaging becomes essential. 2.5D interposers, RDL, micro-bumps, hybrid bonding, and CoWoS-like flows all aim to provide shorter, wider, lower-energy links than a traditional PCB can offer.
The role of CoWoS-like packaging
CoWoS-style packaging places logic dies and HBM stacks on a silicon interposer or dense intermediate layer, then connects the assembly to an organic substrate. This lets a GPU sit close to multiple HBM stacks for high bandwidth and low energy per bit, but it also creates package-size, warpage, thermal, test, and capacity challenges.
Chiplet trade-offs
Chiplets can put different functions on different process nodes, improving yield and reuse. In practice, each chiplet boundary is also a packaging and system-design boundary. The trade-off is more complex die-to-die interconnect, package yield, test coverage, and software-visible latency. Advanced GPU competition now includes packaging design and supply-chain capacity, not only foundry process nodes.