A high sensitivity process variation sensor utilizing sub-threshold operation

Author

Meterelliyoz, Mesut ; Song, Peilin ; Stellari, Franco ; Kulkarni, Jaydeep P. ; Roy, Kaushik

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN

fYear

2008

fDate

21-24 Sept. 2008

Firstpage

125

Lastpage

128

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel low-power, bias-free, high-sensitivity process variation sensor for monitoring random variations in the threshold voltage. The proposed sensor design utilizes the exponential current-voltage relationship of sub-threshold operation thereby improving the sensitivity by 2.3X compared to the above-threshold operation. A test-chip containing 128 PMOS and 128 NMOS devices has been fabricated in 65 nm bulk CMOS process technology. A total of 28 dies across the wafer have been fully characterized to determine the random threshold voltage variations.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; sensitivity analysis; NMOS devices; PMOS devices; bulk CMOS process technology; exponential current-voltage relationship; high sensitivity process variation sensor; random threshold voltage variations; random variations; threshold voltage; Circuit stability; Circuit testing; Fluctuations; Manufacturing processes; Monitoring; Random access memory; Random processes; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Threshold voltage; Yield estimation; process variations; random threshold voltage variations; sensor; sub-threshold operation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, 2008. CICC 2008. IEEE

Conference_Location

San Jose, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2018-6

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2019-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CICC.2008.4672037

Filename

4672037