PowerPlanningDL: Reliability-Aware Framework for On-Chip Power Grid Design using Deep Learning


Academic research paper from Dept. of CSE, IIT Guwahatim, India. Abstract: "With the increase in the complexity of chip designs, VLSI physical design has become a time-consuming task, which is an iterative design process. Power planning is that part of the floorplanning in VLSI physical design where power grid networks are designed in order to provide adequate power to all the underlying ... » read more

Variation Threat In Advanced Nodes, Packages Grows


Variation is becoming a much bigger and more complex problem for chipmakers as they push to the next process nodes or into increasingly dense advanced packages, raising concerns about the functionality and reliability of individual devices, and even entire systems. In the past, almost all concerns about variation focused on the manufacturing process. What printed on a piece of silicon didn't... » read more

Revealing DRAM Operating GuardBands through Workload-Aware Error Predictive Modeling


Abstract Abstract—Improving the energy efficiency of DRAMs becomes very challenging due to the growing demand for storage capacity and failures induced by the manufacturing process. To protect against failures, vendors adopt conservative margins in the refresh period and supply voltage. Previously, it was shown that these margins are too pessimistic and will become impractical due to high ... » read more

Predicting Reliability At 3/2nm And Beyond


The chip industry is determined to manufacture semiconductors at 3/2nm — and maybe even beyond — but it's unlikely those chips will be the complex all-in-one SoCs that have defined advanced electronics over the past decade or so. Instead, they likely will be one of many tiles in a system that define different functions, the most important of which are highly specialized for a particular app... » read more

Silicon Lifecycle Management


How do you track, measure and ensure reliability over the lifetime of a chip, regardless of how or where it is used? Steve Pateras, senior director of marketing for test products at Synopsys, drills down into the impact of hardware-software co-design, over-the-air updates, the expected lifetime of designs, and how the various monitors and sensors are used to track environmental, structural and ... » read more

Using AI And Bugs To Find Other Bugs


Debug is starting to be rethought and retooled as chips become more complex and more tightly integrated into packages or other systems, particularly in safety- and mission-critical applications where life expectancy is significantly longer. Today, the predominant bug-finding approaches use the ubiquitous constrained random/coverage driven verification technology, or formal verification techn... » read more

Structural Integrity Of Chips


A new challenge is on the horizon, and it's one that could have some interesting consequences for chip design — structural integrity. Ever since the introduction of finFETs and 3D NAND, the lines have been blurring between electrical and mechanical engineering. After some initial reports of fins collapsing or breaking, and variable distances between layers, chipmakers figured out how to so... » read more

Selective Redundancy In Cars


The automotive industry has been fish-tailing its way through design strategies and electronics architectures, but it finally appears to be honing in on a strategy that actually might work. This doesn't mean fully autonomous vehicles will take over the road anytime soon, but at least it points carmakers in the right direction. The auto industry has been in panic mode ever since Tesla, Waymo,... » read more

Does HW Vs. SW Choice Affect Quality And Reliability?


Electronic systems comprise both hardware and software. Which functions are implemented with hardware and which with software are decisions made based upon a wide variety of considerations, including concerns about quality and reliability. Hardware may intrinsically provide for higher device quality, but it is also the source of reliability concerns. This is in contrast with popular views of... » read more

Chips Good Enough To Bet Your Life On


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss automotive electronics reliability with Jay Rathert, senior director of strategic collaborations at KLA; Dennis Ciplickas, vice president of advanced solutions at PDF Solutions; Uzi Baruch, vice president and general manager of the automotive business unit at OptimalPlus; Gal Carmel, general manager of proteanTecs' Automotive Division; Andre van de ... » read more

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