AI-on-Chip Systems: A Cross-Layer Review of Architectures, Interconnects, Design Automation, and Embedded Intelligence

Abstract

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads is reshaping semiconductor design across architecture, interconnect, memory hierarchy, packaging, timing, and design automation. Rather than converging on a single hardware solution, the field is expanding into a heterogeneous ecosystem that includes data-center graphics processing units (GPUs), edge neural processing units (NPUs), and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based and hybrid AI system-on-chip (SoC) platforms, chiplet-enabled systems, and emerging beyond-conventional-silicon approaches such as photonic, neuromorphic, and analog in-memory processors. This paper presents a comprehensive review of AI-on-chip systems from a cross-layer perspective. It examines AI chip architectures and hardware platforms, network-on-chip (NoC) designs for AI communication patterns, and algorithm–hardware co-design methods for model acceleration, including compression, quantization, and sparsity-aware optimization. It also reviews clocking, synchronization, and clock-domain-crossing (CDC) challenges in large heterogeneous systems and chiplets, as well as manufacturing, advanced packaging, and reliability issues, including two-and-a-half-dimensional (2.5D) and three-dimensional (3D) integration, thermal and mechanical constraints, assembly quality, and long-term yield considerations. In parallel, the paper surveys the growing role of AI in chip design itself, covering machine-learning-assisted analysis, Bayesian and reinforcement-learning-based optimization, and the emerging use of large language models (LLMs) and AI agents for register-transfer level (RTL) generation, design-space exploration, and autonomous electronic design automation (EDA) workflows. Finally, it discusses beyond-silicon AI chip directions and the broader economic and industry context shaping cloud, on-premises, and edge deployment. By integrating these topics into a unified framework, this review highlights the key technological drivers, system-level tradeoffs, and future research directions that will define next-generation scalable, reliable, and energy-efficient AI-on-chip systems.