Electrical characterization of RF TSV for 3D multi-core and heterogeneous ICs

In this paper, radio frequency (RF) through-silicon via (TSV) designs and models are proposed to achieve high-frequency vertical connectivity for three dimensional (3D) multi-core and heterogeneous ICs. Specifically, coaxial dielectric and novel air-gap-based TSVs are designed and simulated to reduce signal degradation during RF operations. The simulation results demonstrate that these RF TSVs can provide decay-tolerance frequencies two orders of magnitude higher than simple Cu-plug TSVs. The data rate and energy per bit of the RF TSVs are summarized, providing an important guideline for future 3D high-frequency TSV designs.