Such wet chemistry has obvious economic advantages over dry processing such as ionized-PVD, CVD or ALD.

Alchimer chemistry is renouned for its ability to generate extremely conformal insulator and barrier seed layers in high aspect ratio vias (> 20/1) allowing smaller diameter TSV in a given thickness of silicon. This in turn means lower self capacitance and importantly lower stress , i.e when the radius is reduced 4X the stress is reduced 16X !

Truzzi compared the COO of TSV formation by iPVD and  their wet chemistries  using the Yole Developpement TSV+ cost model.

In addition Truzzi challenged the assumptions in the EMC-3D cost modeling and claimed that the true total cost was > $250 per wafer vs the ~ $165 that consortium had previously reported (shown below).

Riko Radojcic of Qualcomm described how 3D gives designers more degrees of freedom. He indicated that for the next 3-5 years design flow will require the use of existing design tools. . He indicated that Qualcomm can “manage the current 3D design flow using current EDA products” He thinks that current design tools will suffice until “ full design suits capable of full chip reconfiguration” are available.  Radojcic commented that vs 2D packaging, no unique thermal issues have been found so far in 3D technology for portable applications.