The evolution in semiconductor technology that builds all the necessary circuits for a system on a single wafer. Just as the integrated circuit eliminated cutting apart thousands of transistors from the wafer only to solder them together on circuit boards, wafer scale integration eliminates cutting chips out of the wafer. All the circuits for an entire computer are designed on one super-sized chip. See
wafer.
First Tried in the Early 1980s
For five years, Trilogy tried to create a 2.5" square chip but failed to produce a product (see
Trilogy). Since then, the multichip module, which connects several chips in a single housing, has become widely used (see
MCM). In addition, the system-on-chip (SoC) found in every smartphone packs thousands of circuits onto one chip that handles nearly everything (see
SoC).
A Huge Wafer Scale Achievement
In 2019, Cerebras Systems developed its Wafer Scale Engine for deep learning applications (see
Cerebras AI computer). Pundits believe wafer scale integration will become commonplace in the future.