Cost Advantages will Drive 3-D System ICs

The DAC Blog has a very nice report on Dr. Walden Rhines' discussion of 3D ICs at the recent GlobalPress event.  The post presents more details than I've seen in other reports.  If you're interested in seeing what one of the true EDA luminaries is thinking about 3D, go read this post...

There are lots of informative illustrations, and a very good summary of why 3D "scaling up" will replace our traditional march towards scaling down.  Quoting from the post:

• "Performance: much higher bandwidth between chips inside the same package. Shorter wire lengths, shorter critical paths."
• "Power: reduce L and C, shorter interconnect paths, no need for traditional I/O drivers"
• "Mixed-die technologies: heterogeneous technologies, mixed generations"
• "Smaller: reduced area, thickness (portable devices)."

Seriously, just go read it, you'll be glad that you did.
 
- Post by Dean Stevens, Monolithic 3D Evangelist