Power dissipation, variations and nanoscale CMOS design: Test challenges and self-calibration/self-repair solutions

In the nanometer technology regime, power dissipation and process parameter variations have emerged as major design considerations. These problems continue to grow with leakage power becoming a dominant form of power consumption. On the other hand, variations in the device parameters, both systematic and random, translate into variations in circuit parameters like delay and leakage, leading to loss in parametric yield. Numerous design techniques have been investigated for both logic and memory circuits to address the growing issues with power and variations. Low-power and process-tolerant designs, however, impose new test challenges and may even have conflicting requirements for test - affecting delay fault coverage, I_DDQ testability, parametric yield, and even stuck-at tests. Hence, there is a need to consider test and yield, while designing for low-power and robustness under variations. In this paper, we provide an overview of major low-power and variation-tolerant design techniques; discuss related test issues and focus on effectiveness of self-calibration/self-repair solutions to maintain high yield while achieving low power dissipation.