COIL-3D: A CAD Tool for the Optimisation of Inductive Links in 3D-ICs

COIL-3D is a CAD tool for determining best performing inductor geometries for use in Inductive Coupling Link (ICL) based Three Dimensional Integrated Circuits (3D-ICs), developed at the University of Southampton, in collaboration with Arm Research.

The tool takes as its inputs a configuration file (*.cfg) describing the physical and electrical parameters required for the design and then generates an inductor layout to maximise the performance of the inductive channel, for data transmission at a given frequency.

COIL-3D consists of two main elements:

• The solver: a set of mathematical expressions to compute the electrical characteristics of the link directly from its physical parameters;
• The optimiser: the optimisation algorithm used to determine best-performing layouts

The tool also provides a gui viewer utility, to visualise the otpimisation process and allows export of:

• A SPICE netlist of the link
• A DXF file containing the physical inductor geometry
• A HFSS project file containing the generated inductor