Effective thermal via and decoupling capacitor insertion for 3D system-on-package

The increased component density of a 3D system-on-package (SOP) exacerbates the thermal hotspot problem. A popular choice to mitigate the thermal issues is thermal vias (t-vias) that are used to establish thermal paths from the core of an SOP package to the heat sinks. Another major problem with SOP integration is the power supply noise coupling among various mixed signal components constituting the system. In this case, decoupling capacitors (decaps) are inserted to provide the switching currents locally. The goal of our automatic 3D SOP component placement algorithm is to determine the x/y/z location of each component while minimizing the footprint area under thermal and power supply noise constraints. In general, t-vias and decaps are typically inserted in the white space in the placement, whereas the proximity of the t-vias and decaps to the target components determines their effectiveness. Hence, our component placer considers t-via and decap insertion during the early design stage, where the component location can be flexibly changed. Related experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.