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research-article

Estimating Circuit Aging Due to BTI and HCI Using Ring-Oscillator-Based Sensors

Published: 01 October 2017 Publication History

Abstract

The performance of nanometer-scale circuits is adversely affected by aging induced by bias temperature instability (BTI) and hot carrier injection (HCI). Both BTI and HCI impact transistor electrical parameters at a level that depends on the operating environment and usage of the circuit. This paper presents a novel method, using on-chip sensors based on ring oscillators (ROSCs), to detect the delay shifts in circuits as a result of aging. Our method uses presilicon analysis of the circuit to compute calibration factors that can translate BTI- and HCI-induced delay shifts in the ROSC to those in the circuit of interest. Our simulations show that the delay estimates are within 1% of the true values from presilicon analysis. Further, for post-silicon analysis, a refinement strategy is proposed where sensor measurements can be amalgamated with infrequent online delay measurements on the monitored circuit to partially capture its true workloads. This leads to about 8% lower delay guardbanding overheads compared to the conventional methods as demonstrated using benchmark circuits.

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          cover image IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
          IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems  Volume 36, Issue 10
          Oct. 2017
          171 pages

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          Published: 01 October 2017

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          • (2025)Detection of Voltage Droop-Induced Timing Fault Attacks Due to Hardware TrojansIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2024.341839544:1(280-293)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2025
          • (2022)Survey on recent counterfeit IC detection techniques and future research directionsIntegration, the VLSI Journal10.1016/j.vlsi.2019.02.00666:C(135-152)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2022

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