Impact of Heterogeneous Technology Integration on the Power, Performance, and Quality of a 3D Image Sensor

This work investigates the effect of heterogeneous technology integration on a 3D integrated image sensor. A system level model is discussed that analyzes the correlation between design choices, power, performance, thermal, and noise. As a case study, a 3D image sensor is analyzed considering a photosensor module designed in 180 nm process, and a compression engine implemented in 180, 90, and 45 nm processes. The coupled analysis shows that scaling down the compression engine to deep sub-micron process provides higher throughput for a given system power or reduces power for a target throughout, but die-to-die thermal coupling can modulate quality of the compressed images.