Cellular Structure-Based Fault-Tolerance TSV Configuration in 3D-IC

In 3-D integrated circuits (3D-ICs), through silicon via (TSV) is a critical technique in providing vertical connections. However, the yield is one of the key obstacles to adopt the TSV-based 3D-ICs technology in industry. Various fault-tolerance structures using redundant TSVs to repair faulty functional TSVs have been proposed in literature for yield and reliability enhancement. But the TSV repair paths under delay constraint cannot always be generated due to the lack of appropriate repair algorithms. In this article, we propose an effective TSV repair strategy for the cellular TSV redundancy architecture, with taking account of the delay overhead. First, we prove that the cellular structure-based fault-tolerance TSV configuration with the delay constraint (CSFTC) is equivalent to the length-bounded multicommodity flow (LBMCF) problem. Next, an integer linear programming formulation is presented to solve the LBMCF problem. Finally, to speed-up the fault-tolerance structure configuration process, an efficient Lagrangian relaxation-based heuristic method is further proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared with the state-of-the-art fault-tolerance structures, the proposed method can provide high yield and low delay overhead.