Variations-Sensitive Digital CMOS Circuits

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Next Generation Digital Microchips The usage of digital microchips in a wide range of applications from smart phones to cars and from PCs to aircrafts has been exponential. This exponential increase in microchip usage was only possible because researchers, including the University of Waterloo's Professor Mohamed Elmasry and his team, were able to double chip performance and functionality at half the cost every two years for the past 37 years. The cost of a microchip is directly related to yield; the number of good chips within a fabricated silicon wafer. Yield depends on several parameters. To enhance it these parameters must be taken into considerations in the design phase. In today's ever increasing area of microchips, wide variations in fabrication parameters and the changes in temperature and supply voltage from one part of the chip to the other pose a major challenge to fabricate microchips at high yield. The objective of this research is to explore novel digital circuits that are less sensitive to variations in fabrication parameters and on-chip changes in temperature and supply voltage.