Streamlining 3D IC design: A complete eBook series for building smarter, faster, and more predictable 3D IC workflows
3D IC design is reshaping what’s possible in semiconductor innovation. By integrating chiplets, advanced packages, interposers, and substrates into highly optimized heterogeneous systems, engineering teams can push performance, power, area, cost, and reliability to new levels.
But with that opportunity comes complexity.
Design teams must manage diverse IP data, explore architecture options, optimize floorplans, verify multi-die assemblies, implement substrates, address manufacturing effects, validate high-speed chiplet interfaces, and maintain traceability across an increasingly distributed design lifecycle. Traditional design flows often struggle to keep up.
That’s why we created “Streamlining 3D IC design,” an eight-part eBook series designed to help engineering teams move confidently from early concept through implementation, verification, and design data management.
Across the series, you’ll discover practical guidance, proven methodology, and Siemens-enabled workflows for accelerating 2.5D and 3D IC development while improving collaboration, data integrity, and design confidence.
Why 3D IC design needs a streamlined approach
Advanced 3D IC architectures introduce new dependencies between silicon, package, substrate, and system-level design decisions. Choices made early in the process can have significant downstream impact on performance, manufacturability, reliability, testability, and cost.
To succeed, teams need to “shift left” — identifying risks, validating assumptions, and optimizing tradeoffs earlier in the design cycle. That means connecting architectural planning, physical prototyping, multiphysics analysis, implementation, verification, and IP management in a cohesive digital workflow. The Streamlining 3D IC design eBook series follows that journey step by step.
eBook 1: Creating the 3D Digital Twin
Every successful 3D IC project begins with a strong foundation: the 3D Digital Twin.
The first ebook in the series explores how to aggregate and manage diverse design IP data for advanced package assemblies, chiplets, and substrates. It addresses one of the most important early challenges in 3D IC design: creating a comprehensive, accurate, and reusable digital representation of the full system.
Readers will learn how industry standards such as 3Dblox and JEDEC JEP30 PartModel can support more repeatable and efficient data integration. By establishing a robust digital twin early, teams can accelerate design exploration, improve collaboration, and maintain data integrity throughout the 3D IC lifecycle.
Streamlining 3D IC design: Creating the 3D Digital Twin | Siemens
eBook 2: Pathfinding the optimal floorplans
Once the 3D Digital Twin is established, teams must determine how best to organize the system physically and functionally.
The second eBook focuses on pathfinding optimal floorplans for heterogeneously integrated semiconductor packages. It explains how System Technology Co-Optimization, or STCO, supports critical decisions around device placement, stacking, and connectivity.
This eBook highlights how early physical prototyping and resource planning can help teams evaluate performance, power, area, cost, and reliability tradeoffs before committing to implementation. With tools such as Innovator3D IC Integrator, engineering teams can explore design options earlier and with greater confidence.
Streamlining 3D IC design: Pathfinding the optimal floorplans | Siemens
eBook 3: Finalizing the design scenario
After exploring floorplan options, teams need to finalize the selected design scenario before moving into assembly verification and implementation.
The third eBook guides readers through the critical steps required to ensure the design is ready for the next stage. Topics include interface compliance, co-design optimization through multiphysics analysis, and comprehensive design-for-test, or DFT, planning for 2.5D and 3D IC packages.
It also introduces Siemens methodology and tools for finalizing the system netlist, including visualizer and debugger capabilities that help teams identify and resolve issues before they become costly downstream problems.
Streamlining 3D IC design: Finalizing the design scenario | Siemens
eBook 4: Signoff and export
The fourth eBook addresses one of the most important milestones in the 3D IC design flow: signoff and export.
Unlike traditional IC design, 3D IC and advanced packaging require verification across the combined IC-package assembly. This eBook explains why conventional IC verification approaches may fall short and why a unified co-design flow is essential.
Readers will learn how package assembly design kits, or PADKs, can support standardization and how tools such as Calibre 3DStack and Innovator3D IC Integrator enable design assembly scenario verification, including DRC and LVS. The eBook also covers how to export qualified design assembly scenarios and create test vehicles for manufacturing validation.
Streamlining 3D IC design: Signoff and export | Siemens
eBook 5: Implementation and interface routing
With the design scenario qualified, the next step is physical realization.
The fifth eBook focuses on the transition from STCO floorplanning to substrate implementation. It explores how optimized design snapshots from Innovator3D IC Integrator can be forward-annotated into Innovator3D IC Layout software.
This step helps preserve data integrity while bringing in essential foundry-specific resources such as Process Design Kits, or PDKs, and Design Rule Manuals, or DRMs. The eBook shows how teams can bridge the gap between predictive analysis and manufacturing-ready layouts, helping reduce rework and maintain consistency across the design flow.
Streamlining 3D IC design: Implementation and interface routing | Siemens
eBook 6: Finalizing substrate design for fabrication
Power delivery networks are essential to reliable 3D IC operation, but they also introduce manufacturing considerations that must be carefully managed.
The sixth eBook examines how to optimize power delivery network, or PDN, structures so they align with fabrication requirements and support yield and reliability. Large metal-filled areas, often called metal pours, can create fabrication risks such as outgassing, delamination, and substrate warping.
To reduce these risks, fabricators typically define rules for inserting degassing voids into large metal areas. This process can be time-consuming and error-prone without the right substrate or interposer design environment. The eBook explains how dedicated tools such as Innovator3D IC Layout software can help streamline void insertion and support fabrication-aware implementation.
Streamlining 3D IC design: Finalizing substrate design for fabrication | Siemens
eBook 7: Chiplet-to-chiplet signal integrity pathfinding for UCIe
High-speed chiplet interfaces are central to many 3D IC architectures, and they require careful planning long before detailed routing begins.
The seventh eBook focuses on chiplet-to-chiplet signal integrity pathfinding for UCIe, the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express protocol. It explores early pre-layout and pre-route strategies for optimizing chiplet interfaces and reducing the risk of late-stage surprises.
Topics include interconnect structure exploration, simulation setup, 3D electromagnetic modeling, standards-based analysis, vendor IBIS-AMI model simulation, and design space exploration. The message is clear: by shifting signal integrity analysis left, teams can better ensure feasibility, optimize performance and cost, and manage the complexity of high-speed interconnects.
3D IC Chiplet Signal Integrity | Siemens
eBook 8: Managing the design and its design IP
The final eBook in the series brings the journey full circle by focusing on design data, design IP management, traceability, and revision control.
Across the first seven eBooks, the series covers digital twin creation, STCO-based pathfinding, design scenario finalization, signoff, substrate implementation, PDN optimization, and UCIe signal integrity. But none of these steps can be truly efficient without strong data management practices.
The eighth ebook explores how teams can maintain control over evolving design data, manage revisions, support traceability, and protect design IP across the 3D IC lifecycle. As projects become more complex and more collaborative, disciplined data management becomes essential to productivity, quality, and confidence.
Streamlining 3D IC design: Managing the design and its design IP | Siemens
A complete roadmap for 3D IC design success
The Streamlining 3D IC design eBook series provides a practical roadmap for navigating the full 3D IC development journey:
- Create the 3D Digital Twin
- Pathfinding optimal floorplans
- Finalize the design scenario
- Complete signoff and export
- Move from STCO floorplanning to substrate implementation
- Optimize PDN structures for fabrication readiness
- Pathfinding chiplet-to-chiplet signal integrity for UCIe
- Manage design data, IP, traceability, and revision control
Together, these eBooks show how engineering teams can streamline complex workflows, reduce risk, improve collaboration, and bring next-generation semiconductor designs to market with greater confidence.
Whether you are defining early architecture, validating assembly scenarios, implementing substrates, optimizing high-speed interfaces, or managing design IP across teams, this series offers valuable insight into building a more connected and efficient 3D IC design process.
Ready to streamline your 3D IC design flow?
Explore the full Streamlining 3D IC design eBook series and discover how Siemens methodologies and tools can help your team accelerate innovation, improve design quality, and manage the complexity of advanced 2.5D and 3D IC development.
