PathFinding and TechTuning

This chapter discusses various implications of the 3D integration technology on the design methodologies, flows, and associated tools. The experiences from the advanced 2D technologies are extrapolated and combined with the incremental challenges posed by the 3D technologies, and the requirements for design ecosystem for 3D technologies are precipitated. The chapter is organized in five sections. In the first section, we define the overall requirements for the 3D design ecosystem, and we identify the need for two incremental design methodologies, in addition to the traditional design authoring flow. The second section describes one of the incremental design methodologies – named PathFinding, and the third section discusses the other methodology – named TechTuning. In section four we present practical application of the proposed design methodology and associated tool chain. Section 5 gives a brief summary and few concluding remarks.