Thermal Modeling of Monolithic 3D ICs

Monolithic 3D integration can approach ultra-high device density compared to TSV -based integration owing to the sequential process. So it can effectively sustain Moore's law without resorting to costly technology shrinking. Nevertheless, heat dissipation problem in M3D ICs poses a big challenge, and is different from TSV -based counterparts due to close thermal coupling between neighboring tiers, which requires further investigations. In this work, we compare the thermal characteristics of M3D ICs to those of 2D ICs in 45nm technology node with a thermal model based on the finite element method. Experimental results show that the average and maximum temperature of M3D ICs is higher. We expect this work can invoke more research interests in thermal modeling and thermal aware physical design of M3D ICs.