Author's Latest Posts


Reducing Post-Placement Leakage With Stress-Enhanced Fill Cells


By Valeriy Sukharev, Jun-Ho Choy, Armen Kteyan and Henrik Hovsepyan As downward scaling of transistors continues, optimizing power consumption for mobile devices is a major concern. Power consumption consists of two components: dynamic and static. Dynamic (active) power is used while the chip is performing various functions, while static (leakage) power is consumed by leakage current (Figure... » read more

EM Analysis At Advanced Nodes


Going forward, a very different method of EM assessment can be proposed if we look at interconnect reliability from the position of its functionality, when the failure of the interconnect means its inability to function properly. The two most important functions of the chip interconnect are: Providing connectivity between different parts of design for proper signal propagations (signal circ... » read more

EM Analysis At Advanced Nodes


EM statistics Almost 50 years ago, James Black demonstrated experimentally that TTF of the metal line stressed by direct current (DC) of density j at the temperature T follows the dependency where k is the Boltzmann constant, and A is the proportionality coefficient, which can depend on line geometry, residual stress, and temperature. Two critical parameters, the current density exponen... » read more

Electromigration Analysis At Advanced Nodes


Introduction Continuous downward scaling is challenging electromigration (EM) signoff using traditional EM checking approaches. The size reduction of metal line cross sections results in higher current densities, which are governed by technology scaling. With the transition to advanced technological nodes, the widely-predicted decrease in EM lifetime is responsible for the pessimistic performa... » read more