3D-ICs with Self-Healing Capability for Thermal Effects in RF Circuits

Abhilash Goyal1,  Madhavan Swaminathan2,  Abhijit Chatterjee2
1IEEE Member Student at San Jose State, 2Professor at GaTech


Abstract

In this papers, a new self-healing methodology is proposed for designing 3D-ICs with self-correctable circuits/systems for heating effects. Therefore, this methodology enables 3D-ICs to work properly without designing/introducing sophisticated heat removing capabilities around 3D-ICs. It is important to note that the proposed methodology is independent of the kind of the circuit and process node technologies (CMOS or BJT). In addition, this self-healing methodology for thermal effects is not limited to 3D-ICs; this methodology can also be implemented in the conventional 2D-ICs for the better performance of 2D-ICs in the harsh temperature conditions. In the proposed methodology, the temperature or heat around the circuit is monitored using the on-chip sensor. After sensing heat, the circuit is calibrated in the right direction to avoid any performance degradation because of the heating effects. In this paper, the algorithm to calibrate the circuit is explained and in addition a very simple on-chip sensor is presented to achieve the self-healing for heating effects. The proposed methodology is demonstrated by designing RF LNA and RF Oscillator. To the authors best knowledge this is the first work on self-healing in the area of 3D-ICs for thermal effects.