Reliability variability simulation methodology for IC design: An EDA perspective

The reliability variation simulation methodology for advanced integrated circuit (IC) design is presented from an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) perspective. Reliability effects, such as hot carrier injection (HCI) and bias temperature instability (BTI), continue to be one of major concerns when devices scale down to smaller sizes. Reliability variability, considering process variation (PV) and aging variation (AV), is becoming critical for circuit reliability and yield. In this paper, we present and compare various reliability variability methodologies that incorporate process and aging variations for circuit simulation. Additionally, the correlation between PV and AV is analyzed. Finally, two representative circuits (ring oscillator and SRAM) are demonstrated with the reliability variation-aware simulation.