Process variation-tolerant 3D microprocessor design: An efficient architectural solution

Process variation is one of the most challenging problems for 3D microprocessors. This is because stacked dies are likely to have fairly different characteristics due to wafer-to-wafer (W2W) variations, which may severely hurt yield of 3D microprocessors. In this paper, we introduce a process variation-tolerant 3D microprocessor design that exploits an architectural insight: narrow-width values. The main target of our technique is last-level caches (LLCs), which are composed of several dies. By storing only the meaningful bit parts within a data word into the LLCs while discarding the zero bit parts (which can be recovered by the zero-extension logic), our proposed technique improves a storage efficiency of the LLCs, which eventually enhances cache yield. According to our evaluation results, our technique significantly improves cache yield in a performance-/energy-efficient manner.