IBM has announced that Micron will begin production of a memory device built using its commercial CMOS manufacturing technology to employ through-silicon vias (TSVs).
IBM's TSV process will be used to create a Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) with access speeds "15 times faster than current technology", said the firms.
TSVs are vertical conduits that electrically connect a individually stacked semiconductor die. The use of TSV provides high bandwidth connections between chips.
HMC prototypes, for example, clock in with bandwidth of 128Gbyte/s.
It also requires less energy to transfer data because signals are not transferred off chip.
"This is a milestone in the industry move to 3D semiconductor manufacturing," said Subu Iyer, IBM Fellow.
"In the next few years, 3D chip technology will make its way into consumer products, and we can expect to see drastic improvements in battery life and functionality of devices," said Iyer.
"HMC is a game changer," said Robert Feurle, v-p of DRAM marketing for Micron.
Micron has also worked with Samsung Electronics on the implementation of an open interface specification for a new memory technology called the Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC).
Micron and Samsung are the founding members of the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC), and will work with fellow developers Altera, Open Silicon and Xilinx to bring the TSV technology to market.
The aims of the initiative are to address memory bandwidth in high-end embedded systems.
"The term "memory wall" has been used to describe the problem. Breaking through the memory wall requires a new architecture that can provide increased density and bandwidth at significantly reduced power consumption," said the companies.
IBM will present the details of its TSV manufacturing breakthrough at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting on December 5 in Washington, DC.
HMC parts will be manufactured at IBM's semiconductor fab in East Fishkill, using the company's 32nm, high-K metal gate process technology.
www.micron.com