Component · General Industry
Die
A single rectangular block of processed silicon cut from a finished wafer, carrying one complete circuit. Engineers argue about die size constantly because both cost and yield scale with how many dies fit on a wafer and how large each one is.
- Also known as
- Dice (plural), Dies (plural)
- Type
- Component
- Domain
- General Industry, Silicon and form factors
Notes
Die cost rises faster than die area because defect probability grows with area, which is a core argument for chiplets.
Overview
A die is one rectangular piece of a processed wafer that carries a complete copy of a circuit, before it is packaged into a finished chip. Wafers hold many identical dies in a grid; after testing, the wafer is cut apart and each good die is mounted in a package, either alone or, increasingly, together with other dies. The plural is dies or dice.
How it works
During lithography the same pattern is stepped across the wafer field by field, so the dies sit in a regular grid. Between them run narrow scribe lines, or streets, which are sacrificed when the wafer is cut. Dies at the round edge of the wafer are incomplete and lost.
At wafer sort every die is probed and marked as good or bad. The wafer is then thinned, mounted and diced, by saw or, in some processes, by plasma etching. Good dies are attached to a package and connected to it. Some dies are sold unpackaged, for modules that combine several dies.
Die size is a central trade-off. Smaller dies cost less, because more fit on a wafer and each is less likely to contain a defect. Splitting a design into chiplets, smaller dies assembled in one package, is one response to the cost of very large dies.
Examples
- A microcontroller die of a few square millimetres, thousands of which fit on one 300 mm wafer.
- Chiplet designs, in which several smaller dies are assembled into one package to act as one larger chip.
- Dies linked inside one package through a die-to-die interface such as UCIe.
Related terms
Part of the General Industry glossary, with every term in the topic and the lifecycles, tools and standards that use them.
Where it appears on the Hub
Used on 259 pages of the Hub. In each group, the pages that mention it most come first.
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Last reviewed . Written by The Semiconductor Hub editorial team. The full glossary