STRUCTURE AND METHOD FOR COUPLING SIGNALS TO AND/OR FROM STACKED SEMICONDUCTOR DIES
Signals are coupled to and from stacked semiconductor dies through first and second sets of external terminals. The external terminals in the second set are connected to respective conductive paths extending through each of the dies. Signals are coupled to and from the first die through the first set of external terminals. Signals are also coupled to and from the second die through the conductive paths in the first die and the second set of external terminals. The external terminals in first and second sets of each of a plurality of pairs are connected to an electrical circuit through respective multiplexers. The multiplexers in each of the dies are controlled by respective control circuits that sense whether a die in the first set is active. The multiplexers connect the external terminals in either the first set or the second set depending on whether the bonding pad in the first set is active.
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This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/074,562, filed Mar. 4, 2008. This application is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety and for all purposes.
TECHNICAL FIELDThis invention relates to semiconductor products, and, more particularly in one or more embodiments, to routing signals to and/or from stacked semiconductor dies in packaged integrated circuit devices.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONHigh performance, low cost, increased miniaturization and greater packaging density of integrated circuits have long been goals of the electronics industry. To meet the demand for smaller electronic products, there is a continuing drive to increase the performance of packaged microelectronic devices, while at the same time reducing the height and the surface area or “footprint” of such devices on printed circuit boards. Reducing the size of high performance devices, however, is difficult because the sophisticated integrated circuitry requires more bond-pads, which results in larger packages and more numerous external terminals, such as ball-grid arrays, and thus larger footprints. One technique for increasing the component density of integrated circuit devices within a given footprint is to stack one integrated circuit semiconductor die on top of another.
Although the use of stacked die integrated circuits has greatly increased the circuit density for a given footprint, coupling the dies to each other and to external terminals can be problematic. One approach is to use wire-bonds, in which miniature wires are attached to bonding pads on the die and to externally accessible terminals. However, wire bonding can be difficult, time consuming, and expensive because one die can overlie the bonding pads of another, thus making them inaccessible. It can also be necessary to route wires extending from one die to another around the peripheries of the dies. To alleviate these problems, “flip-chip” techniques have been developed in which the bonding pads of a first die are attached to a device, such as an interposer, through respective conductive elements to the bonding pads of a second die stacked on top of the first die. The conductive elements may comprise minute conductive bumps, balls, columns or pillars of various configurations. The first die is thus electrically and mechanically coupled to the second die. Unfortunately, flip-chip packaging requires that the first die be a mirror image of the second die. As a result, two separate semiconductor die must be laid out and manufactured, albeit the lay out task is relatively straightforward. Also, flip-chip packaging can unduly increase the cost, time, and complexity of packaging the die.
Another approach to interconnecting stacked die is the use of “through-wafer” interconnects. In this approach, conductive paths such as “vias” extend through a die to electrically couple bond-pads of a first die with corresponding bond-pads of a second die that is stacked on top of the first die. One advantage of this approach is that it allows for only a single die to be designed and manufactured. However, disadvantages of this approach include the time, expense and complexity of forming the conductive paths, and the surface area of the die that may be consumed by the conductive paths. Despite these disadvantages, through-wafer packing works very well, particularly for signals coupled to and/or from the same bonding pads on both die, such as, for memory devices, data and address signals. However, where separate signals must be coupled to and/or from corresponding bonding pads on each die, an extra bonding pad normally must be provided for both signals. Also, a routing circuit is fabricated on the die to couple the signals to and/or from the appropriate bonding pads. Furthermore, a second bonding pad and via are provided to couple a signal to control the routing circuit to one of the die. The result can be an undesirable proliferation in the number of external terminals, such as bond pads that are required, which can unduly increase the footprint of the integrated circuit.
It would therefore be desirable to minimize the number of external terminals needed for stacked die, through-wafer packaged integrated circuits.
A cross-section of a pair of stacked dies 10, 20 using a conventional arrangement is shown in
As mentioned above, a die may generally include a large number of bonding pads (not shown) in addition to the bonding pads 30-48 shown in
As further shown in
One of the bonding pads 30-48 in each pair is coupled by the respective multiplexers 70-76 to its output. The particular bonding pad 30-48 in each pair that is “active” depends upon the state of the signals applied to the control terminals of the multiplexers 70-76. The substrate 50 contains a contact pad 90 that is couple to a supply voltage Vcc. The pad 90 is coupled by the ball grid array 54 to the bonding pad 80 of the lower die 10. As a result, the multiplexers 70-76 and inverter 82 in the lower die 10 receive a high signal that causes them to couple the sCS, sODT, sCKE and sZQ pads to circuits fabricated in the die 10. The bonding pad 80 of the upper die 20 remains uncoupled and thus biased low so that the multiplexers 70-76 in the upper die 20 couple the CS, ODT, CKE and ZQ pads to circuits fabricated in the die 20. As a result, CS, ODT and CKE signals may be applied to the lower die 10 through the bonding pads 30, 36, 40 and contact pads 100, 106, and 110, respectively, on the substrate 50 and separate CS, ODT and CKE signals may be applied to the lower die 10 through the bonding pads 32, 38, 42 and the contact pads 102, 108, and 112, respectively. Additionally, two calibration resistors 120, 122 on the substrate 50 are coupled between respective contact pads 116, 118 and ground. These contact pads 116, 118 are coupled by the ball grid array 54 to the sZQ and ZQ pads 46, 48, respectively. As a result, the resistor 120 is coupled to circuits fabricated in the lower die 10, and the resistor 122 is coupled to circuits fabricated in the upper die 20.
Although the prior art technique shown in
The dies 140, 150 might differ from the dies 10, 20 shown in
In the embodiment shown in
Although the embodiment shown in
One embodiment of the control circuit 170 is shown in
In operation, the low PwrUpRst signal at power up causes the inverter 192 to output a low, which turns ON the transistor 190 to bias the sZQ pad 46 high. At the same time, the low PwrUpRst signal resets the flip-flop 182 thereby causing it to output a low. This low maintains the output of the NAND gate 194 high to render the transistor 190 conductive after the PwrUpRst signal returns to an inactive high state. If the sZQ pad 46 is not bonded out, it remains floating thereby causing the flip-flop 182 to continue outputting a low. As explained above, when the signal applied to the inverter 82 (
As also shown in
From the foregoing it will be appreciated that, although specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.
Claims
1. A semiconductor die, comprising:
- an electrical circuit;
- a plurality of conductive paths extending at least partially through the die;
- a first set of external terminals;
- a second set of terminals, each of the terminals of the second set being paired with a respective one of the terminals of the first set, each of the terminals of the second set being coupled to a respective one of the conductive paths;
- a plurality of multiplexers, wherein each of the multiplexers is coupled to a respective pair of terminals from the first and second sets, each of the multiplexers including a control terminal and respective input terminals coupled to respective ones of the external terminals of the first and second sets, each of the multiplexers being operable to couple either the respective external terminal of the first set or the respective external terminal of the second set to the electrical circuit; and
- a control circuit having an input coupled to one of the external terminals of the first set, the control circuit being operable to determine whether the external terminal to which it is coupled is active, and, at least partially in response thereto, to apply a signal to the control terminals of the multiplexers that cause the multiplexers to couple the external terminals of the first set or the external terminals of the second set to the electrical circuit.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 17, 2010
Publication Date: Mar 17, 2011
Applicant: Micron Technology, Inc. (Boise, ID)
Inventors: Joshua Alzheimer (Boise, ID), Beau Barry (Boise, ID)
Application Number: 12/948,655
International Classification: H01L 25/00 (20060101);