Recent evolutions in semiconductor fabrication has shrunk the scale of transistors to the nanoscale. Advanced IC design techniques integrate several elements and intellectual properties into a chip, such as memories, signal processing units, and central processors, providing high-speed computing and real-time data processing. These techniques facilitate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing. Moreover, research in recent years has enabled the communication between lower-power multicore processing units and memories. The design greatly lowers the communication overheads and latencies and can be applied to the framework with multi-layer memory stacks.
Furthermore, the increasing number of transistors and complexity of functions has brought unprecedented challenges to the testing of system-on-chip. Research teams of the Institute of Electrical Engineering at NYCU apply the built-in testing mechanism in ICs to reduce the cost of IC testing and increase the yield rates. The research outcomes have been applied by national and international companies.