Who Wins With 3D Stacking?
There seems to be little doubt that the semiconductor industry is moving to 3D stacking. It’s simply too expensive for most companies to develop SoCs at advanced nodes from scratch when they can use existing blocks of pre-verified IP—particularly analog IP developed for older processes.
Since the semiconductor industry emerged from the downturn one of the biggest shifts has been to integrating rather than developing everything from scratch. It still has to be laid out using normal place and route tools and it still has to be painstakingly verified. In fact, the verification problem has grown worse because it now includes software.
But the bulk of the existing EDA tools will only need to be tweaked for this to happen. Executives say privately they aren’t expecting huge increases in tools revenues from existing customers because they will simply do more with the same tools. The real opportunity is to sell to new customers, who now have the same integration headaches as existing customers. And while their old tools worked fine at 130nm, 3D stacking allows everyone to feel the same pain of integration and verification.
That also means more number crunching with emulation tools. More formal verification tools because assertions will become a requirement. But the biggest winners will be companies developing point tools to identify thermal issues caused by inadequate power modeling and proximity effects related to power—and those that can ease the integration of multiple layers of chips.
Heat, electromigration and electrostatic discharge are the main issue that needs to be addressed in 3D structures. Chips that work fine in 2D may not work properly in 3D because of both dynamic and static leakage on an adjacent layer. At 20nm, everything leaks. And discharge that may not cause any damage on a single layer can move through a through-silicon via like lightning to an unprotected middle or bottom layer.
This is a huge opportunity for startups and established EDA companies, which will develop their own tools and likely buy up others. It also is a huge opportunity for the industry to begin showing mega growth again. The only question now is exactly when 3D really kicks into high gear, because there are a lot of companies waiting for that answer.
–Ed Sperling
