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We present a practical, systematical method for the evaluation of the soft error rate (SER) of microelectronic devices. Existing methodologies, practices and tools are integrated in a common approach while highlighting the need for specific data or tools. The showcased method is particularly adapted for evaluating the SER of very complex microelectronic devices by engineers confronted to increasingly...
Reliabilities of high-k stacked gate dielectrics are discussed from the viewpoint of the impact of initial traps in high-k layer. TDDB reliability can be explained by the generated subordinate carrier injection (GSCI) model. While initial traps increase the leakage current, they do not degrade the TDDB reliability. In contrast, the BTI reliability is strongly degraded by initial traps.
Continuous scaling, necessary for enhanced performance and cost reduction, has pushed existing CMOS materials much closer to their intrinsic reliability limits, forcing reliability engineers to get a better understanding of circuit failure. This requires that designers will have to be very careful with phenomena such as high current densities or voltage overshoots. In addition to the reliability issues,...
Since the very beginning of the flash memory era, the market has been dominated by the floating gate technology. However, as floating gate flash continues along a very steep scaling path, more and more barriers start to appear, limiting further scaling possibilities of the technology. At the same time, other concepts are preparing to take over. This paper concentrates on the prospect of high-k materials...
Multi-core SoC created great opportunities to increase overall system performance while keeping the power in check but also created many design challenges that designers must now overcome. The challenge of doubling performance every two years used to drive superscalar design with more functional units running concurrently or deeper pipeline racing for highest frequency at the cost of higher power...
Simple ring-oscillator circuit has been used to estimate the degradation in circuit performance due to negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) effect but it fails to isolate the degradation from the NBTI for PMOS and the positive bias temperature instability (PBTI) for NMOS in high-K dielectric/metal gate CMOS technology. In this paper, we propose new circuit structures which monitor the NBTI...
This paper describes a methodology for building a reliable internet core router that considers the vulnerability of its electronic components to single event upset (SEU). It begins with a set of meaningful system level metrics that can be related to product reliability requirements. A specification is then defined that can be effectively used during the system architecture, silicon and software design...
Design and characterization of a new generation of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPAD) array, manufactured by ST-Microelectronics in Catania, Italy, are presented. Device performances, investigated in several experimental conditions and here reported, demonstrate their suitability in many applications. SPADs are thin p-n junctions operating above the breakdown condition in Geiger mode at low voltage...
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