3DHLS: Incorporating high-level synthesis in physical planning of three-dimensional (3D) ICs

Three-dimensional (3D) circuit integration is a promising technology to alleviate performance and power related issues raised by interconnects in nanometer CMOS. Physical planning of three-dimensional integrated circuits is substantially different from that of traditional planar integrated circuits, due to the presence of multiple layers of dies. To realize the full potential offered by three-dimensional integration, it is necessary to take physical information into consideration at higher-levels of the design abstraction for 3D ICs. This paper proposes an incremental system-level synthesis framework that tightly integrates behavioral synthesis of modules into the layer assignment and floorplan- ning stage of 3D IC design. Behavioral synthesis is implemented as a sub-routine to be called to adjust delay/power/variability/area of circuit modules during the physical planning process. Experimental results show that with the proposed synthesis-during-planning methodology, the overall timing yield is improved by 8%, and the chip peak temperature reduced by 6.6°C, compared to the conventional planning-after-synthesis approach.