Power Distribution Failure Analysis Using Transition-Delay Fault Patterns

Power distribution networks (PDNs) have been a vital part of modern designs. However, scaling technologies have increased the likelihood of defects in the PDN that may affect yield, escape, and reliability. Failure analysis is particularly difficult since there is no direct access to the PDN as there is to the design logic. We present a flow that generates transition-delay fault patterns to target open defects on the PDN. The flow identifies regions that could be susceptible to open defects and generates patterns that will exercise those regions to increase the likelihood of a timing failure should a defect exist in the PDN.