A miniaturized heterogeneous wireless sensor node in 3DIC

Abstract

In this paper, an innovative design of a miniaturized heterogeneous 3DIC-based wireless sensor node (WSN) is proposed. The design contains stacks of radio frequency (RF) die, mixed-signal die, digital die, and integrated antenna die using the through silicon via (TSV) technology. Significant enhancements to the existing 2D design and verification flow are developed to solve the critical concerns of heterogeneous 3DIC integration, including the block-level partitioning, TSV macro design, the TSV-related modeling and characterization, and physical verification. Solutions are proposed to minimize the electromagnetic interference (EMI) effects between the IC and the antenna. The size of the proposed 3DIC is only 66% as compared to a similar 2D implementation, permitting miniaturization of the complete WSN system. © 2011 IEEE.