Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D ICs) technology has become a popular research topic to further enhance integration scale as well as reduce the interconnection cost. However, the high power density and the poor heat conductivity of the internal layers of the 3D structure result in high temperature and this becomes a critical design issue of the 3D IC technology. Many heat removal methods have been proposed to address this problem, but most of them do not fully consider the thermal removal effect of the power distribution network (PDN). In this work, a thorough comparison of the heat removal capability of different types of through silicon vias (TSVs) for three-dimensional ICs is presented. It is shown that power TSVs with the associated power delivery network (PDN) has s...[ Read more ]

Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D ICs) technology has become a popular research topic to further enhance integration scale as well as reduce the interconnection cost. However, the high power density and the poor heat conductivity of the internal layers of the 3D structure result in high temperature and this becomes a critical design issue of the 3D IC technology. Many heat removal methods have been proposed to address this problem, but most of them do not fully consider the thermal removal effect of the power distribution network (PDN). In this work, a thorough comparison of the heat removal capability of different types of through silicon vias (TSVs) for three-dimensional ICs is presented. It is shown that power TSVs with the associated power delivery network (PDN) has significantly better heat removal capability than the other types of TSVs. An accurate and efficient thermal simulation methodology is then proposed by incorporating an accurate heat removal model of the PTSVs and PDN. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed methodology is close to that of the detailed 3D finite volume based heat solver, while the computational effort is much lower. Then this compact 3D thermal model is used to guide the PDN and PTSV planning.