Testing for Transistor Aging

Transistor aging results in circuit delay degradation over time,and is a growing concern for future systems. On-line circuit failure prediction, together with on-line self-test, can overcome transistor aging challenges for robust systems with built-in self-healing. Effective circuit failure prediction requires very thorough testing to estimate the amount of aging in various parts of a large design during system operation. This paper introduces such testing techniques. Results on large designs demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of presented techniques.