TSMC's 3Dblox 2.0 Marks a Turning Point in Advanced Chiplet Design Standardization

The semiconductor industry is undergoing a fundamental shift, and TSMC just moved another chess piece that could reshape how next-generation chips get designed. At the 2023 OIP Ecosystem Forum, the company unveiled 3Dblox 2.0, an upgraded open standard that simplifies 3D integrated circuit (3D IC) architecture planning—and it’s already gaining traction among major players like AMD, Micron, Samsung Memory, and SK hynix.

Why 3Dblox 2.0 Matters: Breaking the 3D Design Bottleneck

For years, designing 3D stacked chips has been a nightmare of complexity. Engineers had to juggle power distribution, thermal management, and physical constraints across multiple layers, often in isolated tools that didn’t talk to each other. 3Dblox 2.0 changes that fundamental problem.

The new standard enables something previously impossible: designers can now explore 3D architectures, define power domains, construct physical layouts, and simulate thermal and power behavior all within a single integrated environment. Think of it as giving chip architects a unified command center instead of scattered control rooms. This “holistic environment” approach dramatically accelerates the journey from initial concept to final silicon.

The efficiency gains are substantial. By enabling early-stage power and thermal feasibility studies before committing to detailed design, companies can catch problems that would otherwise surface months into development. Chiplet mirroring features further boost productivity by allowing design reuse across multiple instances.

An Ecosystem Taking Shape: 21 Partners and Growing

TSMC isn’t building this in isolation. The 3DFabric Alliance now comprises 21 industry partners coordinating across the entire semiconductor manufacturing chain. What started as a collaboration framework has evolved into a full-stack solution provider addressing memory, substrate, testing, manufacturing, and packaging integration.

The memory collaboration piece is particularly telling about where the industry is heading. To feed the insatiable appetite of generative AI and large language models, TSMC has intensified partnerships with Micron, Samsung Memory, and SK hynix on HBM3 and HBM3e memory technologies. These high-bandwidth memory solutions aren’t luxuries—they’re prerequisites for AI systems that demand both massive capacity and throughput.

Equally important is substrate innovation. Working with IBIDEN and UMTC, TSMC defined standardized substrate design files that enable automatic routing—a move that targets a 10x productivity improvement. When you’re coordinating thousands of interconnections between chiplets stacked in 3D arrangements, automated design-for-manufacturing (DFM) tools become essential.

The Testing Challenge Nobody Talks About

One often-overlooked dimension is testing. As chips become three-dimensional, traditional test methodologies break down. How do you verify that a chiplet buried two or three layers deep is functioning correctly? TSMC has been collaborating with Advantest and Teradyne, the ATE (automatic test equipment) giants, to develop solutions that use functional interfaces for high-speed stack testing. Early demonstrations aim to achieve another 10x productivity improvement in the testing phase.

This matters because yield loss in 3D configurations can be catastrophic—defects aren’t just manufacturing problems; they’re exponentially more expensive to catch after stacking.

The EDA Ecosystem Responds

Beyond TSMC’s internal efforts, the company established the 3Dblox Committee as an independent standards body, drawing participation from Ansys, Cadence, Siemens, and Synopsys. This committee operates ten technical working groups continuously proposing spec enhancements and ensuring EDA tool interoperability. The goal is ambitious: create a vendor-agnostic standard that lets designers combine chiplets from any manufacturer without architectural compromises.

Designers can now access the latest 3Dblox specifications publicly, with EDA vendors actively developing tool implementations that make the standard practical rather than theoretical.

What This Means for AI and Beyond

The immediate applications are obvious. AMD leveraged TSMC’s advanced 3D packaging for its MI300 accelerators, achieving industry-leading performance and memory bandwidth for AI workloads. But the implications extend further. High-performance computing (HPC) systems, mobile processors handling increasingly complex AI inference, and data center infrastructure all depend on the ability to stack heterogeneous chiplets efficiently.

By standardizing 3D IC design through 3Dblox and coordinating manufacturing through the 3DFabric Alliance, TSMC isn’t just improving design productivity—it’s removing the architectural constraints that previously forced companies to choose between performance, power efficiency, and time-to-market.

The Bigger Picture: From Innovation Barriers to Innovation Accelerators

This echoes back to why TSMC launched its Open Innovation Platform (OIP) 15 years ago. Dr. L.C. Lu, the company’s fellow and VP of Design and Technology Platform, framed it clearly: as the industry embraced 3D IC thinking, collaboration became more critical, not less.

TSMC operates an ecosystem that’s staggering in scope—70,000+ IP titles, 46,000+ technology files, and over 3,300 process design kits spanning from 0.5-micron to 2-nanometer nodes. In 2022 alone, the company deployed 288 distinct process technologies for 532 customers. That scale only works because of standardization and collaboration.

3Dblox 2.0 and the expanding 3DFabric Alliance represent the next evolution: turning potential bottlenecks into throughputs, making advanced semiconductor innovation accessible not just to well-resourced giants but to the broader ecosystem. Whether you’re designing AI accelerators, system-on-chip solutions, or next-generation mobile processors, the barriers to accessing TSMC’s 3D capabilities are being systematically dismantled.