Fast thermal analysis for CMOS VLSIC reliability

Author

Cheng, Yi-Kan ; Kang, Sung-Mo Steve

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

5-8 May 1996

Firstpage

479

Lastpage

482

Abstract

In this paper, we present a fast thermal reliability diagnosis tool (iTHREAD) for CMOS VLSI chips. Unlike existing circuit-level electrothermal simulators, it finds the steady-state temperature distribution, the hot spots, as well as the resulting power consumptions in an extremely efficient way. By using a fast timing simulator with accurate temperature-dependent device models and a novel 3-D analytical thermal simulator, it can easily handle very large circuits. With iTHREAD, temperature-dependent reliability and timing problems of VLSICs can be accurately and quickly predicted. It can be further applied to guide the module placement, timing verification, and many other IC reliability diagnoses

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; VLSI; circuit analysis computing; digital simulation; integrated circuit modelling; integrated circuit reliability; temperature distribution; thermal analysis; timing; 3D analytical thermal simulator; CMOS VLSI chips; CMOS VLSIC reliability; fast thermal reliability diagnosis tool; fast timing simulator; hot spots; iTHREAD; module placement; power consumption; steady-state temperature distribution; temperature-dependent device models; timing verification; very large circuits; Analytical models; Circuit simulation; Computational modeling; Electrothermal effects; Semiconductor device modeling; Steady-state; Temperature distribution; Thermal stresses; Timing; Very large scale integration;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, 1996., Proceedings of the IEEE 1996

Conference_Location

San Diego, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3117-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CICC.1996.510601

Filename

510601