TSV sharing through multiplexing for TSV count minimization in high-level synthesis

TSV count minimization is an important topic for 3D ICs. In previous works, TSV sharing is limited to the same functional unit output and the same functional unit input. In this paper, we present the first attempt to use multiplexers to extend TSV sharing for cross-layer data transfers that have different functional unit outputs and different functional unit inputs. We use an ILP (integer linear programming) to formally draw up the simultaneous application of resource binding, layer assignment, and TSV sharing (through multiplexing) to minimize the TSV count. Compared with previous works, our approach can greatly further reduce the TSV count.