By Zvi Or-Bach, President & CEO, MonolithIC 3D Inc.
Next week, as part of the IEEE S3S 2017 program, we will present a paper (18.3) titled “A 1,000x Improvement in Computer Systems by Bridging the Processor Memory Gap”. The paper details a monolithic 3D technology that is low-cost and ready to be rapidly deployed using the current transistor processes. In that talk, we will also describe how such an integration technology could be used to improve performance and reduce power and cost of most computer systems, suggestive of a 1,000x total system benefit. This game changing technology would be presented also in the CoolCube open workshop, a free satellite event of the conference 3DI program.
In an interesting coincidence DARPA just came out with a calls for >50x improvement in SoC
The 3DSoC DARPA solicitation reads: “As noted above, the 3DSoC technology demonstrated at the end of the program (3.5 Years) should also have the following characteristics:
–Capability of > 50X the performance at power when compared with 7nm 2D CMOS technology.
The 3DSoC program goal of 50x is to allow proposals suggesting US-built device at 90nm node vs. 7nm of computer chip using conventional 2D technologies. Looking at the table below we can see that if 7nm technology is used the benefit would be over 300x
This represents a paradigm shift for the computer industry and high-tech world, as normal scaling would provide 3x improvement at best. The emergence of AI and deep learning system makes memory access a key challenge for future systems, and indicate the far larger benefits offered by monolithic 3D integration.
The following charts were presented by the 3DSoC program manager Linton Salmon at the 3DSoC proposers day. The program calls for the use of monolithic 3D to overcome the current weakest link in computers – the memory wall.
Leading to the 3DSoC solicitation was work done by Stanford, MIT, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon.
Proposals are due by Nov 6.
There is a unique opportunity to hear the 3DSoC DARPA Program Manager, Dr. Linton Salmon, articulate the program and what DARPA is looking for during his invited talk at the S3S 2017 conference next week.