Rothko: A three dimensional FPGA architecture, its fabrication, and design tools

Abstract

We are designing and plan to fabricate a 3-dimensional field programmable gate array. The three dimensional VLSI technology, developed at Northeastern University, is based on transferred circuits with interconnections between layers of active devices. Interconnections are in metal, and can be placed anywhere on the chip. Our FPGA architecture, called Rothko, is based on the sea-of-gates FPGA model first proposed in the Triptych architecture (a 2-D architecture) in which individual cells can be used for routing, logic, or both. We provide 3-D connections to each cell from above and below. This makes our architecture truly 3-D with each cell having connections to cells on other layers. In this paper we present the architecture of Rothko, discuss the 3-D technology we use, and discuss CAD tools for mapping designs onto Rothko.