imec IC-Link Joins TSMC 3DFabric Alliance

According to announcements made on May 12, 2026, imec has confirmed that its IC-Link ASIC and silicon photonics design and manufacturing services unit has officially joined the TSMC Open Innovation Platform (OIP) 3DFabric Alliance, strengthening collaboration across advanced semiconductor design and packaging ecosystems.

The 3DFabric Alliance is a key component of TSMC’s OIP ecosystem, focused on accelerating innovation and real-world adoption of 3D integrated circuit (IC) technologies. It promotes customer utilization of TSMC’s advanced packaging and 3D integration portfolio, which includes technologies such as SoIC®, CoWoS®, InFO, and SoW™. Through this integration, IC-Link is expected to enhance its capabilities in advanced chip integration while expanding access to imec’s global ASIC service offerings for ecosystem partners.

As artificial intelligence, high-performance computing (HPC), and memory-intensive workloads continue to scale rapidly, traditional chip design methodologies are reaching physical and architectural limits. Industry dynamics are increasingly shifting from transistor scaling alone toward system-level integration, where performance, power efficiency, and cost are determined by how effectively multiple chiplets and memory components are combined into unified architectures. In this context, advanced packaging has evolved from a backend consideration into a central pillar of semiconductor innovation.

For ASIC development, this transition requires deeper cross-domain collaboration. Optimizing chip and package co-design now demands iterative development across design, integration, and manufacturing teams. Participation in TSMC’s 3DFabric Alliance enables partners to gain earlier access to 2.5D and 3D integration technologies, accelerating development cycles and time-to-market for complex system solutions.

Industry executives noted that IC-Link’s participation further strengthens its positioning in advanced heterogeneous integration, particularly for high-performance computing, automotive, mobile, and telecommunications applications, where advanced packaging is becoming a decisive factor in performance and energy efficiency. The collaboration is expected to provide customers with improved pathways toward scalable production and industrialization of 3D IC solutions.

According to imec representatives, the partnership reflects the organization’s long-standing expertise in advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration, reinforcing its ability to support leading-edge projects across Europe and North America. Meanwhile, TSMC emphasized that collaboration within the 3DFabric Alliance continues to play a critical role in enabling next-generation 3D IC innovation and expanding the value of its OIP ecosystem.

IC-Link has been part of TSMC’s ecosystem for years, joining its Design Center Alliance in 2007 and Value Chain Aggregation initiative in 2009. Its inclusion in the 3DFabric Alliance marks a further deepening of this relationship, highlighting its strategic role in bridging semiconductor research and industrial deployment.

As the semiconductor industry moves toward modular and multi-die system architectures, collaborations within ecosystems such as TSMC’s OIP and 3DFabric Alliance are expected to play an increasingly important role in enabling scalable, high-performance computing solutions for next-generation applications.