The Future of Heterogeneous Integration from Materials to Systems
There are three challenges emerging to enable future semiconductor systems for AI applications, namely, 1) Energy crises with the introduction of AI datacenters, 2) Moore’s law reaching a bottleneck limited by monolithic integration, and 3) Memory Wall due to lack of access to memory. Can advanced packaging aka 3D Heterogeneous Integration (3DHI) help to address these challenges? This talk will highlight the status, challenges and potential solutions, including some research breakthroughs as it relates to materials, devices, components, architectures, and systems.
Bio: Madhavan Swaminathan is the Department Head of Electrical Engineering and is the William E. Leonhard Endowed Chair at Penn State University. He also serves as the Director for the Center for Heterogeneous Integration of Micro Electronic Systems, an SRC JUMP 2.0 Center.
Prior to joining Penn State, he was the John Pippin Chair in Microsystems Packaging & Electromagnetics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor in ECE with a joint appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and Director of the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center – a graduated NSF-Engineering Research Center, Georgia Technological Institute. Prior to Georgia Tech, he was with IBM working on packaging for supercomputers.
Swaminathan’s interdisciplinary research on semiconductor packaging and systems integration over the years have resulted in 650+ technical publications, 200+ invited presentations (seminars, keynotes, panels), three books, five book chapters, 32 patents, 35 best paper and student paper awards, five Georgia Tech awards, two start-ups, and several international recognitions with the recent one being the 2024 IEEE Rao R. Tummala Electronics Packaging Award (highest technical field award in packaging) for “contributions to semiconductor packaging and system integration technologies that improve the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of electronic systems”. He is also the founder of the IEEE Conference on Electrical Design of Advanced Packaging and Systems, a premier conference sponsored by the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society. He is a Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Fellow of Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association, and has served as the Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility society. He serves as an advisor to India Semiconductor Mission and on the external advisory board for Move2THz (an EU initiative), as well as advisor to 3DGS and Claros (acquired by Navitas Semiconductor in 2026).