Environmental Impact Assessment of Chiplet-Based VLSI

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the revolutionary shift in VLSI design brought about by chiplet-based architectures, which are superior to the older, single-piece designs in many ways. This type of architecture not only boosts performance and allows for greater system expansion but also plays a significant role in promoting environmental sustainability. Chiplet-based designs lead to more resource-efficient, less wasteful, and more energy-efficient semiconductor technologies, steering the industry towards a more environmentally friendly path. The adoption of eco-chips enhances these environmental benefits, leading to a notable decrease in the carbon emissions associated with electronic devices and systems. This shift is pivotal in achieving the twin goals of advancing technology and upholding environmental stewardship in VLSI. We introduce HI as a strategy for achieving sustainable computing, creating chiplet-based systems that have a smaller carbon footprint than traditional System on Chips (SoCs). We also present ECO-CHIP, a tool we developed for estimating the carbon footprint of these systems, accounting for both their construction and operational phases, including the carbon costs of advanced packaging. In Section VI, we illustrate how ECO-CHIP can be used for breaking down systems into smaller parts and for exploring different design options, and we have integrated it with other tools for estimating the costs of chiplet-based designs. ECO-CHIP is freely available as open-source software and can be found in an anonymous repository [21]. We contend that ECO-CHIP will facilitate the creation of more environmentally friendly design practices for the next generation of complex systems.