Monolithic 3D offers IC power simulator

LONDON – Monolithic 3D Inc., previously known as NuPGA, has released an open-source simulator for assessing power consumption and connectivity of planar and 3-D components called IntSim v2.0.

IntSim was developed by Deepak Sekar, chief scientist at Monolithic 3D and can be used to predict chip power consumption, die size, number of metal levels and optimal sizes of metal levels based on various technology and design parameters. Users can also study scaling trends. The first version of IntSim was a Matlab-based simulator focused on conventional two-dimensional integrated circuits. It was developed by Sekar in 2007 during his Ph.D. studies with Professor James Meindl at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In the second version support for 3-D technology has been added. IntSim v2.0 is written in Java and runs as an application on Windows, Mac OS X and Unix operating systems.

"We found IntSim v1.0 to be a simple to use and uniquely powerful modeling tool for understanding and responding to the impact of technology on multi-core architecture design," said Dr. Sudhakar Yalamanchili, a Joseph M. Pettit Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We have integrated it into our baseline many-core modeling and simulation environment and are excited to see its evolution to support 3D-ICs."

Zvi Or-Bach, president and CEO of Monolithic 3D (San Jose, Calif.), said, "We've made the software open-source so it can be continually developed and improved over time by a community of users interested in 3-D IC technology."

A beta version of the software can be downloaded from the company's website.


Related links and articles:

www.monolithic3d.com

News articles:

Startup outlines monolithic 3-D chips