Three-dimensional Integrated Circuit Design

Chapter 1. Introduction

Electronics has experienced tremendous growth over the past century. During this time period, the use of electronic merchandise has steadily increased while the size of these products has decreased. The transition from micro- to nano-scale has further enhanced the applicability of electronic products into new areas, which were previously precluded due to the prohibitive size of these systems. The seed that caused this growth — the “big-bang” of electronics — was a grain of germanium on which the point contact transistor was fabricated for the first time in 1947 by J. Bardeen, W. Brattain, and W. Shockley [1].

This invention appealed to the interests of scientists and engineers, resulting in research efforts focused on ...