Partial Coaxial Through-Silicon via for Suppressing the Substrate Noise in 3-Dimensional Integrated Circuit

Abstract

In this paper, a novel through-silicon via (TSV) structure, named partial coaxial TSV (PC-TSV), is proposed to suppress TSV-induced substrate noise. In this structure, the via is surrounded by a benzocyclobutene (BCB) layer, and a grounded metal ring placed at one end. The BCB layer can effectively reduce the leakage of the signal to the substrate, and the metal ring provides a low impedance path for the substrate noise. An equivalent RLGC model of this structure is also established, and it is verified by simulated result from CST. Then, the performance of PC-TSV is compared with that of the traditional TSV, TSV with p+ layer, and TSV with p+ guard ring. Analysis results in frequency domain indicate PC-TSV has a larger $\vert \text{S}_{21}\vert $ and less near-end crosstalk than other three structures. Additionally, analysis results in time domain show that the substrate voltage noise of this structure is obviously reduced compared with the TSV with p+ layer and TSV with p+ guard ring. Also, a feasible process flow for this structure is given and it is simpler than that for traditional coaxial TSV.

Keywords

• Crosstalk
• equivalent RLGC model
• forward transmission coefficient
• noise
• through-silicon via