Intel banks on 3D chip technology to win over new customers

In the past, chipmakers like Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co raced each other to make the features on chips smaller and smaller to cram more computing power onto a single chip.

But the newest race in chipmaking is to stack “chiplets” or “tiles” – tiny squares sliced out of what would normally be a single, larger chip – on top of a base layer of silicon in one package, mixing and matching different technologies rather than trying to make a single big chip.

What analysts call three-dimensional packaging saves costs. It also could help manufacturers improve chip performance even as they push the physical limits of how small chip features can get.