Texas Instruments is looking at through-silicon vias as a wide bandwidth interconnect technology in its processor platforms.
TI is the first processor firm to say it is looking at the so-called "3D-chip" technology.
"This is definitely a technology we are looking at," Avner Goren, general manager of the OMAP processor platform business at Texas Instruments told Electronics Weekly.
"The big gain with TSVs is the memory bandwidth it can give you," said Goren.
Goren would not say when and in which products TSV could be used.
An possible application could be in the firm's OMAP or DaVinci applications processor platforms where memory and processor die could be stacked to save space and power and to increase data bandwidth between chips.
Through silicon via (TSV) technology is a technique where semiconductor die are stacked on top of each other with direct interconnections by vias in the silicon.
This avoids the use of bond wires for interconnecting chips and so radically improves data bandwidth.
Initial applications are in connecting to memory chips with Samsung and Micron Technology leading the way.
FPGA firms Xilinx and Altera are also interested in using the technology.
Samsung has already demonstrated how TSVs and 3D packaging can reduce power consumption in 32Gbyte DDR3 registered DIMMs.
“TSV allows us to stack dies onto one another and therefore increase the density of any given package,” Samsung spokeswoman Ujeong Jahnke told Electronics Weekly. “The RDIMM is manufactured by stacking 4Gbit DRAM die.”
Xilinx has described a multi-die Virtex-7 design with up to four FPGA slices configured side-by-side with interconnection provided by a silicon interconnect die stacked beneath the FPGA slices.
“The aim is to remove the need for chip-to-chip interconnections in the highest density FPGAs, with two million logic cells, which can limit signal bandwidth and add to power consumption,” said the FPGA company.
With interest growing is TSV as the most attractive 3D-chip technology, it could be only a matter of time between the technology is applied to other processor-based platforms.
