3D INTEGRATED CIRCUITS FOR BEGINNERS

ENJOY FASTER SYSTEM PERFORMANCE WITH 3D INTEGRATION

There are many design aspects that require consideration and analysis in the development of a three-dimensional integrated circuit. More specifically, when considering power delivery, synchronization, and signalling in a TSV-based 3-D IC, the potential to integrate disparate technologies with independent voltage and peak power requirements, clock speeds, thermal design power, noise requirements, and a slew of other design considerations requires new methodologies and techniques beyond which are used for two-dimensional system-on-chip integrated circuits.

In addition, considerations unique to 3-D ICs such as increased hot spot formation, place and route in the z direction as well as the x and y direction, and more importantly the potential to integrate ICs from different foundaries where not all design information is shared between vendors requires not only novel methodologies and techniques, but also novel circuits at the interface between the heterogeneous device planes.

In this guide, you'll learn how to develop circuit design techniques, methodologies, and algorithms at multiple levels of abstraction as well as experimental test vehicles to provide early ground work on synchronization, power delivery, and signalling in 3-D SoC based circuits.