Three-dimensional wafer stacking using Cu TSV integrated with 45nm high performance SOI-CMOS embedded DRAM technology

For high-volume production of 3D-stacked chips with through-silicon-via (TSVs), wafer-scale bonding offers lower production cost compared with bump bond technology [1][2][3] and is promising for interconnect pitch <;= 5μ range using available tooling. Prior work [3] has presented wafer-scale integration with tungsten TSV for low-power applications. This paper reports the first use of low-temperature oxide bonding and copper TSV to stack high performance cache cores manufactured in 45nm SOI-CMOS embedded DRAM (EDRAM) having 12 to 13 copper wiring levels per strata. A key feature of this process is its compatibility with the existing high performance POWER7™ EDRAM core [4] requiring neither re-design nor modification of the existing CMOS fabrication process. Hardware measurements show no significant impact on device drive and off-current. Functional test at wafer level confirms 1.48GHz 3D stacked EDRAM operation.