Tutorial 6
Electromagnetic Modeling of 3D Integrated Circuits with Integral Equation Methods

Piero Triverio , University of Toronto

Three-dimensional integration is disrupting the semiconductor industry, enabling the design of integrated circuits (ICs) with unprecedented performance. These architectures play a critical role in the development of high-performance computing systems, and are a key enabler for artificial intelligence applications. The design of 3D ICs poses significant challenges, particularly in the area of electromagnetic modeling. The interconnect network that delivers signals and power across the IC is subject to electromagnetic phenomena, such as interference and resonances, that can undermine IC performance and reliability. Their accurate prediction is critical for a successful design, but requires the ability to solve Maxwell's equations for an extremely complex and multiscale geometry (thousands of objects, millions of unknowns) over a broad frequency range (DC to 80 GHz). This is a fascinating challenge that pushes the limits of computational electromagnetism, and is immensely relevant to the design of emerging technologies such as 3D ICs, metasurface antennas, metamaterials and quantum computing devices. This tutorial will first review the state of the art in integral equation methods for Maxwell’s equations. A comprehensive overview of their mathematical foundations will be presented, including meshing, choice of basis functions, modeling of layered substrates, acceleration and parallelization. Finally, we will discuss research developments and their application to the electromagnetic modeling of 3D ICs.

Piero Triverio received the Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in 2009. He is a Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, with cross-appointments to the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and to the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. His research interests include computational electromagnetism, high-performance computing, and computational fluid dynamics applied to cardiovascular diseases. Prof. Triverio and his students received the Piergiorgio Uslenghi Letters Prize Paper Award (2021), the Best Paper Award of the IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging (2007), the EuMIC Young Engineer Prize (2010), and the Ontario Early Researcher Award (2016). Triverio and his students won several awards at international conferences, including the Best Paper Award of the IEEE Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (2008, 2017).