Design methodology of high-density silicon interposer for integrated 3D IC GPU package

Abstract

3D IC represents a comprehensive terminology including every method that stacks silicon ICs vertically. 3D IC is expected to be the future solution for a smaller and a better system because of the technology trend, and the merits 3D IC give. However, in 3D IC, silicon interposer is the essential component because of the various merits including routability and cost. Silicon interposer is a silicon substrate between package and IC, or IC and IC to interconnect various components. However, despite the various merits silicon interposer can give to 3D IC, silicon interposer has its design issues that make the use of silicon interposer harder than any other substrate. Thus, full design and analysis for silicon interposer is needed considering signal integrity and power integrity. In this paper, design methodologies are introduced on designing silicon interposer for 3D IC, including the process flow to full custom design. Signal integrity simulation and power integrity simulation results are also included to verify the usage of design methodology. A fully operating GPU package for graphic card application was designed. 4 DRAMs were included inside the GPU package, using 3D IC technology and silicon interposer for small size and low cost.