CAD Tools for 3-Dimensional VLSI Circuits

"Three dimensional integration offers the potential of orders of magnitudeimprovement by reducing interconnect lengths and delays. With recent breakthroughsin manufacturing technology, 3-D circuits are emerging as a commercially viablesolution to enable continued technology development conforming to Moore's Law.However, the exploration of 3-D circuits will be hampered by a lack of designtools for thermal investigation and 3-D place and route. In this SBIR proposal,Orora Design Technologies (ODT) proposes the development of a new generation ofCAD tools and a design methodology for three-dimensional integrated circuits.ODT will develop a VHDL-AMS based methodology will be developed and demonstratedfor modeling and simulation of the coupled electrical and thermal performances of3-D circuits. Innovative place-and-route tools will be developed to facilitateexploration and multi-objective optimization of 3-D circuits. The design of anasynchronous FFT processor tailored to the 3-D structure will be chosen to allowdemonstration of performance gains in reducing latency, increasing clock speed,and increasing density while still maintaining reasonable power dissipation. Three dimensional integration hold the potential for increasing circuit performance.By stacking circuits, an increase in circuit density and a decrease in the lengthof critical routes can be achieved. This in turn will alleviate the burdens placedon the large die currently implem