Advances in 3-D Integrated Circuits, Systems, and CAD Tools

Exploiting the third or z-axis direction in microelectronic circuits has been highly sought-after in many instances, and with soaring increases and demand for chip performance at lower cost, the interest in 3-D integrated circuits (ICs) is seeing an unprecedented surge. In light of this, as well as the many recent breakthroughs and reported challenges of today???s 3-D integration for improved IC performance, power consumption, integration density, and so on, we bring you here a Special Issue of IEEE Design & Test on Advances in 3-D Integrated Circuits, Systems, and CAD Tools. The collection of articles in this Special Issue highlight leading-edge research and methodologies that address nagging challenges persisting in today???s 3-D integration, and the work being done to realize both 3-D and hybrid 2.5-D schemes for more fluid design and test platforms that can yield the most benefits at the least cost in the coming years. This set of specially written and selected articles examine both specific case studies of the most significant problems in 3-D ICs, while also providing a broader viewon how such 3-D ICs can be deployed for mainstream applications.