Layout-driven hot-carrier degradation minimization using logic restructuring techniques

The rapid advances in semiconductor manufacturing technology have created tough reliability problems. Failure mechanisms such as hot-carrier effect, dielectric breakdown, electrostatic discharge and electromigration have posed tremendous threats to the long-term reliability of VLSI circuits. As a result, designers not only need analysis tools to locate the problem, but also design-for-reliability tools to correct it. However, these problems often surface when the physical layout is done and relatively few logic changes can be made. In this paper, we target the performance optimization issues in the context of hot-carrier induced degradation. A layout driven approach combining rewiring, discrete gate resizing, and pin reordering is proposed. Experimental results show that rewiring-based incremental logic restructuring is a very powerful technique in post-layout design for reliability.