CAREER: A Synergistic CAD Framework for Nanometer Design and Process Integration

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Proposal ID: 0644316Title: CAREER: A Synergistic CAD Framework for Nanometer Design and ProcessIntegrationPI: David PanInstitution: UT AustinAbstract:After four decades of Moore's Law empowered by CMOS scaling, the semiconductor industry is facing unprecedented design and manufacturing challenges. The industry is stuck with the 193nm optical lithography as the dominant integrated circuit manufacturing process, which is likely to remain so for at least another 5 years, for 45nm, 32nm, and even 22nm technology nodes. A prominent feature of the deep sub-wavelength lithography is its proximity, layout-dependent effect. It is estimated that the lithography and design-related yield losses may contribute to 80% or more of the total yield loss in nanometer designs. However, it is not well captured in existing design flows, from modeling to optimization. This project will develop a synergistic computer aided design (CAD) framework that enables holistic design and process integration. It will resort to the root causes of yield losses by developing a set of design-oriented yet variation-aware manufacturing/yield models, as well as geometrical and electrical characterizations using predictive virtual silicon images. Thus it will help to eliminate significant amount of uncertainties for yield analysis and optimization. Meanwhile, guided by the modeling framework, novel CAD algorithms will be developed at various abstraction levels and architecture explorations will be performed for multi-objective design/manufacturing optimizations. The project will further investigate design and process integration issues for emerging technologies such as nanolithography and hybrid CMOS/post-CMOS processes.The integrated education component of the project will train a diverse body of students in this highly crosscutting and important area, where the intersection and co-evolution of circuit design, CAD and manufacturing create an excellent opportunity for exposing students to multiple engineering disciplines. Taken together in a holistic manner, this project aims at filling the critical gaps between design/CAD and manufacturing/process to further extend the scaling and economic benefits of the Moore's Law.