CAREER: Bridging the Technology-EDA Gap through Strategic Tools for Robust Nanometer Design

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The exponential rise of manufacturing variations, environmental uncertainties, and reliability degradations dramatically influences all aspects of a nanoscale integrated system. These emerging physical effects lead to an excessive amount of performance variability and invalidate current integrated circuit design ethodologies. To overcome these challenges and continue along the path predicted by Moore's law, a fundamental shift in the design paradigm is needed to seamlessly integrate nanometer technology properties, integrated circuit design, and advanced electronic design automation (EDA) strategies. This project aims to develop a comprehensive suite of predictive design tools to analyze and mitigate circuit performance variability in the presence of multiple sources of uncertainties. These design tools comprise variability models, statistical analysis, and concurrent optimization methods to improve design predictability and reliability for future nanoscale systems of all types, from computation to consumer electronics. In addition, a hierarchical framework will be developed to statistically predict system performance under various variability and reliability constraints. This framework allows designers to identify key design needs, evaluate important design tradeoffs, and adaptively make design decisions up front. Research efforts in this project facilitate the robust design of nanometer circuits and enhance the fundamental understanding of reliable design with unreliable components, including both nanoscale complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOS) and future emerging technologies. The education component of this project transfers the newly developed design knowledge to a diverse population of students, through novel education curricula and web-based dissemination tools. The basic design concepts will be taught in a summer course for K-12 teachers, at a level that can be appreciated by the teachers and, more importantly, by their students to stimulate an initial interest in engineering.