Fast 3D Integrated Circuit Placement Methodology using Merging Technique

Abstract

In the recent years the advancement in the field of microelectronics integrated circuit (IC) design technologies proved to be a boon for design and development of various advanced systems in-terms of its reduction in form factor, low power, high speed and with increased capacity to incorporate more designs. These systems provide phenomenal advantage for armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) design to develop miniaturised low power, high performance sub-systems. One such emerging high-end technology to be used to develop systems with high capabilities for AFVs is discussed in this paper. Three dimensional IC design is one of the emerging field used to develop high density heterogeneous systems in a reduced form factor. A novel grouping based partitioning and merge based placement (GPMP) methodology for 3D ICs to reduce through silicon vias (TSVs) count and placement time is proposed. Unlike state-of-the-art techniques, the proposed methodology does not suffer from initial overlap of cells during intra-layer placement which reduces the placement time. Connectivity based grouping and partitioning ensures less number of TSVs and merge based placement further reduces intra layer wire-length. The proposed GPMP methodology has been extensively against the IBMPLACE database and performance has been compared with the latest techniques resulting in 12 per cent improvement in wire-length, 13 per cent reduction in TSV and 1.1x improvement in placement time.