Reliability-Aware Design of Systems on Chip (SoCs)

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The world is seeing a relentless penetration of smart devices and systems that fuel applications in all of the world's economic sectors, and all of the world's built and natural environments and beyond (outer space). Semiconductor devices (transistors) constitute the building blocks of integrated circuits (ICs) and systems on chip (SoCs) that, in turn, form the underlying technology that enables this formidable deployment. CMOS refers to the semiconductor fabrication technology used for the vast majority of electronic-based systems deployed today and projected to remain for years to come. The CMOS fabrication technology has been on a scaling (down) trajectory for decades, allowing for ever increasing transistor counts and yielding ever increasing system performance (speed) and capability. The reliability of transistors has always been a factor for consideration for IC manufacturers and system integrators. However, this reliability consideration is now reaching unprecedented levels of importance and challenge. The reasons are twofold: 1) a multitude of new(er) products are required to maintain a guaranteed level of performance over extended periods of time (years or decades) in possibly harsh environments, e.g., automotive, communications infrastructure, internet of things (IOT); 2) the ageing (performance deterioration over time) mechanisms that emerge as CMOS continues to scale are growing in relative importance (impact) and complexity. This project addresses these two factors and aims to provide solutions to meet higher reliability requirements in light of the more complex and ill-understood failure mechanisms. Our efforts will benefit IC manufacturers, and, most importantly, organizations (e.g., Huawei) where IC and system designers face increasingly significant reliability challenges. Canada has a large number of companies focused on the design of ICs for a multitude of applications. The outcomes of this project will benefit all such companies by allowing them to more economically and rapidly meet reliability requirements, thereby augmenting their competitiveness.