System on a chip (SoC)

       

              System on a chip concept is very important for the evolution of the future devices. Earlier each function of the system is implemented in separate chips. The evolution of personal computers is an example for the system on chip concept. In earlier days the processor was a separate chip and all other functions like graphics, IO's, WLAN etc are implemented separate chips. But nowadays the duopoly companies Intel and AMD is in a race to integrate as many functions into a single chip thereby simplifying the system cost and complexity. Current SOC's of AMD integrate CPU, GPU and IO in a single chip. Qualcomm is the preferred supplier of chipsets for the high end smart phones because it of its integration of the communication IP in its application processors. Intel has integrated an on-chip voltage regulator. Integration like this make Original Equipment Manufactures (OEM) to come up with new designs. 

                 Though the SOC concept provides lot of advantages it introduces a lot of complexities for the chip manufacturers. Various IPs need to be made work in same process nodes, manage power dissipation etc. SOCs indeed reduce the overall power consumption of the system. Chip manufacturing technology is also one of the contributor for the SOC concept. Every two years the number of transistors in a die of same size would double itself. This tempts the chip manufacturers to add more and more features into their chip sets there by differentiating them-self from their competitors. The concept of integrated graphics in PC microprocessor chips is a clear example stating this trend. Advancements in the manufacturing technology which i witnessed from 65nm to 20nm has made chip manufactures rethink about their architectures. Many SOCs nowadays have multiple cores for compute rather that one core in earlier days. This is in one way of taking advantage of the silicon down scaling. 

                    The picture here bellow shows the Nvdia's Tegra SoC for tablets. What we could see here is apart from the ARM processor it has got a image processor, GeForce Graphics processor unit and other bunch of connectivity IPs. This we call it a system on a chip. Gradually every bit of the motherboard is pulled into the integrated circuit thereby making the devices miniaturization and improve the performance.

                            

                                                   Pic : Tegra SOC . Courtesy : Nvdia                      

                       The ultimate beneficiaries of the system on a chip concept are the end consumers. The toatl cost of the device comes down exponentially with highly integrated SOCs. Also the reliability and the performance of the device is greatly improved. Power consumption of the system can be reduced substantially by integrating more and more of the functions into the single SOC. The SOC concept should not be confused with SIP (System in Package). SIP has many integrated circuits kept in a single packaging. usually the integrated circuits are stacked vertically. 3D packaging techniques have been developed to stack many integrated circuits one above the other. SOC concept have more advantages than compared to SIPs.
                         SOC concept is the future of integrated circuits. Ultimately all the functionality will be fabricated in a single silicon chip giving rise to a new era of electronic devises. Soon we might see embedded able chips that can offset human disabilities like vision, sense etc.