A Novel TDMA-Based Fault Tolerance Technique for the TSVs in 3D-ICs Using Honeycomb Topology

Through-silicon-vias (TSVs) are prone to defects during the manufacturing process, which pose yield challenges for three dimensional integrated circuits (3D-ICs). The area per TSV is too great to be ignored, and in order to not use any redundant TSVs, a chain-type time division multiplexing access (TDMA)-based fault tolerance technique is proposed. However, a double-TSV structure is used per group, resulting in a significant TSV hardware overhead under a given large-scaled circuit design. Furthermore, it is impossible for the chain-TDMA scheme to plan the rerouting path for the right-hand-most TSV per group, resulting in a decrease in the repair rate per TSV group as well as in the whole TSV yield. In the proposed technique, we bundle six TSVs per group in a honeycomb pattern and the TSVs on the edges are connected to each other, enhancing the repair rate per group as well as the whole TSV yield. Subsequently, an architecture based on the proposed technique is designed, evaluated, and validated on logic-on-logic 3D IWLS’05 benchmark circuits using 45 nm TSMC technology. The proposed technique is found to reduce the area overhead by 87.95–90.42 percent, compared to the chain-TDMA scheme, which results in a yield of 96.90–99.09 percent.