Scalable modeling and wideband measurement techniques for a signal TSV surrounded by multiple ground TSVs for RF/high-speed applications

The advantages of single-ended transmission lines are their simplicity and high flexibility of interconnection. Generally, shielding with additional ground lines is essential to improving the immunity of single-ended RF/high-speed signals against noise. However, this approach is very difficult to realize for a single-ended through silicon via (TSV) in 3D ICs because of the strong dependence of characteristic impedance on the number of ground TSVs. To address this issue, this work provides a physical and scalable equivalent-circuit model of a signal TSV that is circularly surrounded by multiple ground TSVs. Additionally, with the help of a double-sided probing system, wideband measurements of S-parameters of up to 40 GHz and eye-diagrams of 40 Gb/s signal are made to validate the modeled results.