Industry Articles

Robert Patti, Tezzaron Semiconductor
EETimes (11/14/2011 11:23 AM EST)

The industry’s current enthusiasm for 3D-ICs is widespread and well warranted, but designing those 3D devices presents a challenge.  Normal 2D tool flows, thoroughly honed and refined over many years, nonetheless fail to address some of the critical issues of 3D design.  A new 3D design process is evolving gradually from that 2D heritage.  When Tezzaron designed its first 3D circuits in 2003, the designers used standard 2D CAD tools and cobbled together a 3D DRC and LVS flow based on scripts.  Today there are tools to handle a complete backend flow and strides are being made to enable true 3D design partitioning, synthesis, placement, and routing.

This article discusses the current state of 3D tools and software, describes a working flow, and identifies the areas where more progress is needed.  We base the discussion on a specific next-generation demonstration device taken from a design that Tezzaron is prototyping with several partners.  The demo design contains an advanced ARM® processor stack, an “off the shelf” FPGA die, and a DRAM memory stack, all assembled onto an active silicon circuit board acting as an interposer.