Industry Expert Blogs

3D technology is generating a lot of interest as a way to reduce NRE costs and speed time to market. It is in its nascency so people are looking for a single standard in through-silicon vias (TSVs). This is mainly for reducing infrastructure costs. Unfortunately, I do not think this will be the case. There are at least two fundamentally different applications for 3D technology that are driven by completely different incentives. The mobile space is driven mostly by the need for reduced power, height and area. The infrastructure and networking space is driven by the need for yield improvement and the ability to insert more memory than is monolithically possible — at  much lower power. Mobile devices need thin architectures and very thin packages. On the other hand, larger networking devices require thicker 3D-ICs or interposers in order to handle the flatness needed for larger die and the side-by-side architectures of the devices.