- Octavo Systems puts Ti SOC's and PMIC's in a package with outside vendor DRAM and ROM chips. - NXP builds some auto parts with a mix of NXP chips on different process nodes and third party flash.
I spent a few years designing these types of systems. In my mind the the biggest value of a standard like this is to push companies to make it worth their while to sell "known-good-die" (KGD) or fully-tested die.
Modern chip manufacturing basically has a two part test flow - a partial test of each die on the wafer then after slicing and packaging each part goes through final test. Packaging is expensive and so imagine building a multi chip module which might have an SOC, DRAM, PMIC and FLASH bare dies and then it goes through final test and each of those dies had a 90% final test yield then the MCM might only have a 65% yield. That's a lot of money down the drain.....
If I built the same part using fully tested die then my yields should be closer to 95-99% - basically the failures are not due to bad silicon, but bad packaging....
Right now it's tough to get companies to spend the resources on a KGD test program because the market is just too small/scattered. A standard helps to build a market.
With that said - I haven't seen this standard yet. I just requested a copy. From the little info available on the website (https://www.uciexpress.org/) it sounds like it's just an IO interconnect standard - along the lines of something like MIPI DSI + D-PHY. That's a good start but the dream of "lego" like chips will require standardized foot prints and pinouts which may just never be feasible but there are people exploring this idea....