Author's Latest Posts


Efficient ESD Verification For 2.5/3D Automotive ICs


Protection against electrostatic discharge (ESD) events is an extremely important aspect of integrated circuit (IC) design and verification, particularly for 2.5/3D designs targeted for automotive systems. ESD events cause severe damage to ICs due to a sudden and unexpected flow of electrical current between two electrically charged objects. This current may be caused by contact, an electrical ... » read more

Context-Aware Analysis Can Automatically Protect Critical Nets And Devices During Fill Insertion


Context-aware physical verification (PV) is a relatively new addition to traditional PV flows, but it has quickly become a critical and essential technology that addresses the increasing complexity of geometrical checks used in both established and emerging integrated circuit (IC) technologies. Traditional electronic design automation (EDA) verification tools handle either the physical verifica... » read more

2.5/3D IC Reliability Verification Has Come A Long Way


2.5D/3D integrated circuits (ICs) have evolved into an innovative solution for many IC design and integration challenges. As shown in figure 1, 2.5D ICs have multiple dies placed side-by-side on a passive silicon interposer. The interposer is placed on a ball grid array (BGA) organic substrate. Micro-bumps attach each die to the interposer, and flip-chip (C4) bumps attach the interposer to the ... » read more

Can We Efficiently Automate 2.5/3D IC ESD Protection Verification?


Protection against ESD events (commonly referred to as ESD robustness) is an extremely important aspect of integrated circuit (IC) design and verification, including 2.5/3D designs. ESD events cause severe damage to ICs due to a sudden and unexpected flow of electrical current between two electrically charged objects. This current may be caused by contact, an electrical short, or dielectric bre... » read more

Now You Can Automate Latch-Up Verification For 2.5/3D Technologies


Latch-up is modeled as a short circuit (low-impedance path) that can occur in an integrated circuit (IC). It may lead to destruction due to over-current resulting from interactions between parasitic devices (PNP and NPN). To protect against latch-up conditions, there are two key types of latch-up design rules—fundamental and advanced [1,2]. Fundamental rules are the local latch-up design r... » read more

Improving Reliability


By Dina Medhat Advanced IC designs implement complex strategies to minimize static and dynamic power. Mixed-signal designs typically require different supply voltages for the analog and digital portions of the design, and even all-digital ICs can have many power domains and operating voltages. Typically, some signal lines cross from one domain to another and special interfaces and “voltage p... » read more