Abstract
Low-power is one of the key driving forces in modern very large scale integration systems. Recent studies show that 3-D integrated circuits (ICs) offer a significant power saving over 2-D ICs. However, these studies are mainly limited to two-tier (2-tier) designs. Thus, in this paper, we extend our target to three-tier (3-tier) 3-D ICs. This paper first shows that the one additional tier available in 3-tier 3-D ICs does offer more power saving compared with their 2-tier 3-D IC counterparts, but more careful floorplanning, through-silicon via management, and block folding considerations are required. Second, we find that the 3-tiers can be bonded in several different ways: 1) face-to-back only; 2) face-to-face and face-to-back combined; and 3) back-to-back and face-to-face combined. This paper shows that these choices pose additional challenges in design optimizations for more power saving. Lastly, we develop effective computer-aided-design solutions that are seamlessly integrated into commercial 2-D IC tools to handle 3-tier 3-D IC power optimization under various bonding style options. With our low-power design methods combined, our 3-tier 3-D ICs provide -14.8% more power reduction over 2-tier 3-D ICs, and -36.0% over 2-D ICs in microprocessor cores under the same performance. In full-chip microprocessors, our 3-tier 3-D ICs provide -27.2% more power reduction over 2-D ICs.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 7447714 |
Pages (from-to) | 2056-2067 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2016 |
Keywords
- 3D IC
- F2F (face-to-face)
- floorplanning
- low power
- power reduction
- TSV