A thermal isolation technique using through-silicon vias for three-dimensional ICs

This brief proposes a guard ring using throughsilicon vias (TSVs) to isolate thermal coupling in a 3-D integrated circuit (3-D IC). To verify this idea, simulation and measurement are carried out. A ring oscillator (RO) is implemented in a 65-nm CMOS and then measured in four different conditions. The results show that, without affecting the inherent electrical performance of the RO, the designed TSV ring shields the RO from high-temperature environments. The oscillation frequency shifting is mitigated from 5.96 MHz without TSV to 2.11 MHz with the proposed TSV ring. This TSV-based structure provides a good option to alleviate thermal coupling in a highly integrated 3-D IC.