Performance analysis of MCM systems

When a new interconnection technology is developed, it is of interest to accurately characterize its electrical features from a system´s perspective and evaluate its possible application areas and boundary limits. Accurate design models can then be extracted and used for a correct design and implementation of electronic systems. This paper describes a case study used to characterize a five-layer thin-film multichip module (MCM) technology developed for high speed digital applications. The high frequency characterization of the substrate has been combined with the electrical models of the input/output (I/O) buffers of a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology to accurately analyze the signal propagation with a network simulation tool. A test chip and MCM module have been developed to evaluate how the maximum system frequency is influenced by different quantities such as line length, type of driver or noise. Experimental results, showing a good match with simulations, demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. It is also shown how it is possible to take advantage of some apparently limiting features of thin-film MCM´s to actually improve the system performance