Aging and Reliability Effects Modelling and Mitigation in Nanoelectronics and Sensors

微型和纳米电子器件（晶体管和传感器）构成了所有当前和新兴计算、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，众多新兴应用正在以前所未有的速度推动其部署，预计将持续数十年。示例应用包括自动驾驶汽车、物联网、太空或粒子加速器中的低温应用以及量子计算机。困扰这种设备的一个基本问题是它们对老化的敏感性增加，即随着时间的推移表现出性能和/或功能的明显退化。晶体管老化的一个表现是晶体管开启或关闭时的电压偏移。随着时间的推移，这导致这种晶体管变得更慢，直到完全不能工作，从而导致系统故障。虽然普通消费品可能是可容忍的，但这种退化在具有长时间段的高性能和/或高安全关键性要求的系统和应用中将是不可容忍的，例如，汽车行业。我最近的研究调查了与半导体材料老化有关的一些基本现象。拟议的工作将通过专注于建立导致晶体管和传感器随时间退化的机制的基础知识和表征来扩展这项工作。重点将放在最常见的技术，如互补金属氧化物半导体（CMOS）以及其他新兴技术，如碲锌镉（CZT）用于新型辐射探测器，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旨在开发解决方案，完全消除或减轻随着时间的推移退化的原因。因此，这项工作的目标是开发解决方案，以部署未来的高性能和/或高可靠性计算，通信和传感器系统和网络。这项工作将涉及复杂的数值建模技术的发展，并将导致新的设备制造，电路和系统设计方法，考虑到或规避老化机制，并涉及毕业生（6）和本科生（3）谁将成为高素质和就业的加拿大工业，并能够有助于未来的研发在工业或学术环境。 这项工作将有助于全球半导体研发界专注于电子器件可靠性挑战。 这项工作将直接和间接的重要性和利益的无数组织建立在加拿大，并侧重于目前或新兴的计算，通信和传感技术。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.