A scalable 3D heterogeneous multi-core processor with inductive-coupling thruchip interface

Abstract

A scalable heterogeneous multi-core processor is developed. 3D heterogeneous chip stacking of a general-purpose CPU and reconfigurable multi-core accelerators improves computational energy efficiency by proper task assignment and massive parallel computing. The stacked chips interconnect through a scalable 3D Network on Chip (NoC). By simply changing the number of stacked accelerator chips, processor parallelism can be widely scaled. In combination with Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), the energy efficiency can be optimized for various performance requirements. No design change is needed, and hence no additional Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) cost. An inductive-coupling ThruChip Interface (TCI) is applied to stacked-chip communications, forming a low-cost and robust high-speed 3D NoC. A prototype demonstration system has been developed with 65nm CMOS test chips. Successful system operations including 10-hours continuous Linux OS operation are confirmed for the first time.