- As the number of components for a circuit grew, the number of interconnects increased exponentially. Not only was soldering thousands of leads and connections difficult and costly, but also it reduced reliability and caused errors in computation.
- Connecting together discrete components to form a circuit increased size of the built circuit.
Bob Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, on the other hand, integrated connections between components. His first prototype, a flip-flop, is shown above. With the monolithic integrated circuit concept developed by Noyce, one could get very high connection density in circuits. Interconnects between components could be made much smaller! [Read Computer History Museum's article on the invention of the Integrated Circuit]
Going monolithic could be an option, and my company is exploring it, as are others such as Stanford University and BeSang. With monolithic 3D and integrated vertical connections, one can get very high connection density between components of the 3D-IC. The monolithic idea took the (2D) IC community by storm... will history repeat itself for the 3D-IC?
- Post by Deepak Sekar