2015 3D ASIP conference: Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Hills!

2015 3D ASIP conference: Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Hills!
by Bill Martin on 12-27-2015 at 4:00 pm

Last week I presented at the 3D ASIP EDA Tutorial and attended the Conference. In previous years, leading edge papers were presented from large companies pushing a solution to meet their needs. These companies had the resources and clout to achieve some astounding successes, but the lingering question was: “what other product… Read More


ASMC 2015 Preview

ASMC 2015 Preview
by Scotten Jones on 05-01-2015 at 7:00 am

From May 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] to May 6[SUP]th[/SUP] the 26[SUP]th[/SUP] annual Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC) will be held in Saratoga Springs, New York.

The ASMC offers a unique view of challenges to the semiconductor industry focusing on things like defect reduction, metrology and fab operations. In… Read More


TSV Modeling Key for Next Generation SOC Module Performance

TSV Modeling Key for Next Generation SOC Module Performance
by Tom Simon on 04-20-2015 at 1:00 pm

The use of silicon interposers is growing. Several years ago Xilinx broke new ground by employing interposers in their Virtex®-7 H580T FPGA. Last August Samsung announced what they say is the first DDR4 module to use 3D TSV’s for enterprise servers. Their 64GB double data rate-4 modules will be used for high end computing where … Read More


Will 3DIC Ever Be Cheap Enough for High Volume Products?

Will 3DIC Ever Be Cheap Enough for High Volume Products?
by Paul McLellan on 12-12-2014 at 8:00 pm

More news from the 3DASIP conference. Chet Palesko of SavanSys Solution had an interesting presentation with the same title as this blog (although this blog draws from several other presentations too). Chet took a look at what aspects of 3D are likely to get cheaper going forward. He took as a starting point that stuff that is not … Read More


Solution for PI, TI & SI Issues in 3D-ICs

Solution for PI, TI & SI Issues in 3D-ICs
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-30-2014 at 7:00 pm

As we move towards packing more and more functionalities and increasing densities of SoCs, the power, thermal and signal integrity issues keep on rising. 3D-IC is a great concept to stack multiple dies on top of each other vertically. While it brings lot of avenues to package dies with multiple functions together, it has challenges… Read More


Noise & Reliability of FinFET Designs – Success Stories!

Noise & Reliability of FinFET Designs – Success Stories!
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-01-2014 at 7:00 am

I think by now there has been good level of discussion on FinFET technology at sub-20 nm process nodes and this is an answer to ultra dense, high performance, low power, and billion+ gate SoC designs within the same area. However, it comes with some of the key challenges with respect to power, noise and reliability of the design. A FinFET… Read More


A Deeper Insight into Quantus QRC Extraction Solution

A Deeper Insight into Quantus QRC Extraction Solution
by Pawan Fangaria on 08-14-2014 at 7:00 pm

Last month Cadenceannounced its fastest parasitic extraction tool (minimum 5 times better performance compared to other available tools) which can handle growing design sizes with interconnect explosion, number of parasitics and complexities at advanced process nodes including FinFETs, without impacting accuracy of … Read More


How to meet 3Ps in 3D-ICs with sub-20nm Dies?

How to meet 3Ps in 3D-ICs with sub-20nm Dies?
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-06-2014 at 1:30 am

It feels to be at the top of semiconductor technology by having dies with high density of semiconductor design at sub-20nm technology node stacked together into a 3D-IC to form a complete SoC which can accommodate billions of gates. However there are multiple factors to be looked at in order to make that successful amid often conflicting… Read More


Smart Strategies for Efficient Testing of 3D-ICs

Smart Strategies for Efficient Testing of 3D-ICs
by Pawan Fangaria on 02-12-2014 at 6:30 am

3D-IC has a stack of dies connected and packaged together, and therefore needs new testing strategies other than testing a single die. It’s given that a single defective die can render the whole of 3D-IC unusable, so each die in the stack must be completely and perfectly tested before its entry into that stack. Looking at it from a … Read More


TSMC projects $800 Million of 2.5/3D-IC Revenues for 2016

TSMC projects $800 Million of 2.5/3D-IC Revenues for 2016
by Herb Reiter on 01-27-2014 at 11:00 am

At TSMC’s latest earnings call held mid January 2014, an analyst asked TSMC for a revenue forecast for their emerging 2.5/3D product line. C.C. Wei, President and Co-CEO answered: “800 Million Dollars in 2016 ”. TSMC has demonstrated great vision many times before. For me, an enthusiastic supporter of this technology, this statement… Read More