Efficient analysis of variability impact on interconnect lines and resistor networks

Continued technology scaling coupled with limited lithographic capabilities is a leading cause of increased design variability. In the nanometer regime lithography tools have failed to keep pace with Moore´s Law and printed feature sizes are a small fraction of the wavelength of light used in current processes. Such sub-wavelength printing makes features highly susceptible to perturbations in the lithographic process conditions which leads to printed designs exhibiting increased variability. Such variability directly affects design behavior and performance in multiple ways. One of the areas of concern is power grid (PG) design, where lithographic errors may locally modify the wire widths. These variations, that may affect any and all wires in the grid, have a critical impact on the power distribution across the chip, introducing considerable current fluctuations which are a potential cause for electromigration effects. To analyze and account for the impact of these errors requires a complete extraction of the PG, which generates a large resistive network, potentially with several million elements, whose simulation is computationally challenging. This paper proposes a fast and accurate variability analysis of very large resistor networks, such as PG extracted netlists, that allows estimating the effects of multiple parameter settings in reasonable time. The proposed model can be easily combined with Litho/CMP simulators in order to boost much needed design-aware lithography.