NBTI & PBTI of MOSFETs


Technical paper titled "Bias Temperature Instability of MOSFETs: Physical Processes, Models, and Prediction" from researchers at Liverpool John Moores University. Abstract "CMOS technology dominates the semiconductor industry, and the reliability of MOSFETs is a key issue. To optimize chip design, trade-offs between reliability, speed, power consumption, and cost must be carried out. This r... » read more

What Causes Semiconductor Aging?


Semiconductor technology has evolved to the point where no one can assume chips will last forever. If not carefully considered, aging can shorten the life of an IC below the needs for an intended application. Aging is well studied in technology circles, but while others less directly involved may understand at a general level this is a problem, it's not always obvious why. So what exactly ar... » read more

Aging Analysis Common Model Interface Gains Momentum


By Greg Curtis, Ahmed Ramadan, Ninad Pimparkar, and Jung-Suk Goo In February 2019, Siemens EDA wrote an article1 entitled “The Time Is Now for a Common Model Interface”. Since that time, we have continued to see increasing demand for aging analysis, not only in the traditional automotive space, but also in other areas of technology design, such as mobile communication and IoT application... » read more

Problems And Solutions In Analog Design


Advanced chip design is becoming a great equalizer for analog and digital at each new node. Analog IP has more digital circuitry, and digital designs are more susceptible to kinds of noise and signal disruption that have plagued analog designs for years. This is making the design, test and packaging of SoCs much more complicated. Analog components cause the most chip production test failures... » read more

Addressing IC Reliability Issues Using Eldo


Advanced, short-geometry CMOS processes are subject to aging that causes major reliability issues that degrade the performance of integrated circuits (ICs) over time. Degradation effects causing aging are hot carrier injection (HCI) and negative bias temperature instability (NBTI), in addition to positive bias temperature instability (PBTI) and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB). Below ... » read more

The Time Is Now For A Common Model Interface


By Ahmed Ramadan and Greg Curtis Driven by consumer demand for “cheaper, faster, and better,” the semiconductor industry is continually pushing the migration to smaller process geometries. This continued scaling of complex designs into advanced process nodes is critical for applications ranging from high-performance computing to low-power mobile devices. In the past, products like sma... » read more