Aging and Reliability Effects Modelling and Mitigation in Nanoelectronics and Sensors

微纳电子设备(晶体管和传感器)构成了所有当前和新兴的计算、通信和传感网络的基础。这些设备已经出现在社会和经济部门的各个方面，大量新兴应用正在以前所未有的速度推动它们的部署，预计将持续数十年。应用的例子包括自动驾驶车辆、物联网、空间或粒子加速器中的低温应用以及量子计算机。困扰这类设备的一个根本问题是它们对老化的敏感性增加，即随着时间的推移，性能和/或功能会显著下降。晶体管老化的一个例证是晶体管开启或关闭时电压的变化。随着时间的推移，这会导致这些晶体管变得更慢，以至于完全无法运行，从而导致系统故障。虽然普通消费品可能是可以容忍的，但在对高性能和/或高安全关键程度设定了长时间要求的系统和应用中，这种降级将是不可容忍的，例如汽车行业。我最近的研究调查了半导体材料中与老化有关的一些基本现象。拟议的工作将通过重点建立基本知识和描述导致晶体管和传感器随时间退化的机制来扩展这项工作。重点将集中在最常见的技术，如互补金属氧化物半导体(CMOS)以及其他新兴技术，如用于新型辐射探测器的碲化锌镉(CZT)，其应用于医学成像、安全(炸弹探测)和监视。拟议的研究计划还将致力于开发解决方案，随着时间的推移完全消除或减轻退化的原因。因此，这项工作的目的是开发解决方案，使今后能够部署高性能和/或高度可靠的计算、通信和传感器系统和网络。这项工作将涉及开发复杂的数值建模技术，并将导致考虑或避免老化机制的新型器件制造、电路和系统设计方法，并将涉及毕业生(6)和本科生(3)，他们将成为加拿大工业的高素质和可雇用的人，并能够为未来工业或学术环境的研发做出贡献。这项工作将为专注于电子设备可靠性挑战的全球半导体研发社区做出贡献。*这项工作将对在加拿大建立并专注于当前或新兴的计算、通信和传感技术的无数组织具有直接和间接的重要性和兴趣。这些公司包括MDA、华为、IBM、亚马逊、谷歌、MicroSemi、D-Wave、加拿大航天局、Redlen Technologies等。

Micro- and nano-electronic devices (transistors & sensors) form the basis of all current and emerging computing, communication and sensing networks. These devices are already found in all facets of society and economic sectors and a multitude of emerging applications are driving their deployment at an unprecedented pace expected to continue for decades. Example applications include autonomous vehicles, internet of things, cryogenic applications in space or particle accelerators, and quantum computers. One fundamental problem that plagues such devices is their increased susceptibility to aging, namely to demonstrate a noticeable degradation in performance and/or functionality over time. One demonstration of transistor aging is the shifting of the voltage at which a transistor turns on or off. Over time this leads such transistors to become slower to the point of failing to function altogether and thereby leading to system failure. While possibly tolerable common consumer products, such degradation will not be tolerable in systems and applications with requirements set for high-performance and/or high safety-criticality for extensive periods of time, e.g., automotive sector. My recent research has investigated some fundamental phenomena related to aging in semiconductor materials. The proposed work will extend this work by focusing on establishing fundamental knowledge and characterization of the mechanisms that cause transistor and sensor degradations over time. The focus will be on the most common technologies like Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) as well on other emerging technologies such as Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) used in novel radiation detectors with applications in medical imaging, security (bomb detection) and surveillance. The proposed research program will also aim at developing solutions that eliminate altogether or mitigate the causes for degradation over time. This work will therefore aim at developing solutions that will allow the deployment of future high performance and/or highly reliable compute, communication and sensor systems and networks. The work will involve the development of sophisticated numerical modelling techniques and will lead to novel device fabrication, circuit, and system design methodologies that take into account or circumvent aging mechanisms, and involve graduates (6) and undergraduates (3) who will become highly qualified and employable by Canadian industry and able to contribute to future R&D in industrial or academic environments. The work will contribute to the worldwide semiconductor R&D community focused on electronic device reliability challenges.  The work will be of direct and indirect importance and interest to a myriad of organizations established in Canada and focused on current or emerging computing, communications and sensing technologies. These include MDA, Huawei, IBM, Amazon, Google, Microsemi, D-Wave, Canadian Space Agency, Redlen Technologies, and others.