Three-dimensional Integrated Circuit Design

Chapter 11. Conclusions

With MOSFET channel lengths several tens of nanometers long, modern silicon integrated systems can support gigascale transistor densities. On-chip systems, for example, often include several processing cores within a microprocessor system or a mixture of various silicon technologies, such as analog, digital, and RF, in a mixed-signal SoC. The former is the heart of a high-performance computing system, while the latter can feature a versatile, compact, and portable electronic product. A fundamental requirement for this system-on-chip paradigm is efficient and reliable communication among the system components.

High-speed, low-power, and low-noise intercomponent communication is fundamentally limited by the increasing impedance ...