CEA-Leti today announced an agreement with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, to assess the feasibility and the value of Leti’s sequential 3D technology.

In recent years, Leti has been actively working on a new 3D integration technology process called sequential 3D integration that enables the stacking of active layers of transistors in the third dimension. In comparison with 3D-TSV technologies, advantageously used to stack separate die, sequential 3D technology is anticipated to process all the functions in a single semiconductor manufacturing flow. Thus, the technology allows connecting active areas at the transistor level, at a very high density as it uses a standard lithography process to align them.

According to Leti experts, this new technology is expected to allow a 50 percent gain in area and a 30 percent gain in speed compared to the same generation of technology made ​​in classical 2D. These gains are comparable to those expected in next-generation 2D technology, but the sequential 3D technology is expected to be much less complex and expensive to implement, making this technology a potential alternative to conventional planar scaling solutions.

Leti has shown a number of significant technical advances in sequential 3D technology. The arrangement between Leti and Qualcomm Technologies will allow the critical assessment of this technology in the context of practical applications, further evaluating the potential impact of this sequential 3D technology for future industrialization.