Characterization of Physical Defects and Fault Analysis of Molecular and Nanoscaled Integrated Circuits

This paper reports a concept to design the defect-tolerant molecular integrated circuits (^MICs). The results are applicable to conventional ICs which utilize solid-state devices. By enhancing photolithography and other CMOS processes, advancing materials and optimizing devices, some device and circuit performance were improved. Unfortunately, some key performance characteristics and capabilities were significantly degraded. The performance tradeoffs and effects of the equivalent cell size reduction are well known. The defects and faults at the device and circuit levels must be accommodated. It is illustrated that in general, the defects and faults can be accommodated.