5. 3D integration

5.1 Issues

One of the challenges facing the semiconductor industry is to respond simultaneously to the race for integration, improved performance and lower costs. These challenges have guided the roadmaps of the main foundries, and have led to major technological advances. For example, the reduction in the size of components has made it possible to increase speed of execution and improve the performance of components predicted by Moore's Law (performance doubles every 18 months); we are now able to manufacture chips with more than a billion transistors.

3D (three-dimensional) integration allows us to go beyond Moore's Law for components. This technology, which consists in stacking components, allows systems to be miniaturized and interconnection densities to...