CAREER: Automation Tools for Post-Silicon Debug of Timing Errors in Integrated Circuits

现代电子系统的复杂性和纳米尺度的非理想性使得在制造前很难实现高度的验证。由于芯片与外界的接口有限，故障的硅后调试变得更加复杂。现有的调试过程主要是手动的，耗时的，并且涉及昂贵的设备。因此，上市时间和利润直接受到威胁。本提案提出了一种用于硅后调试过程自动化的方法。它依靠嵌入和测量特殊设计结构来验证系统的“健康”，并利用这些测量的分析方法来调试错误的原因。具体来说，关注的是那些以时序错误的形式表现出来的故障，这会导致逻辑上的设置和保持时间违反，并且是最麻烦的错误分析类型。所提出的方法确定了芯片上的组合和顺序逻辑的测量点，以及在设计和后硅阶段实时和工作负载相关或静态和基于保护带计算的分析方法。教育目标是改善教学，多样性，为本科生和研究生的工程实践和研究做准备。本文提出了以下三个任务：1)基于“每个孩子一台笔记本电脑”项目在大一跨学科课程中的开发和教学案例研究；2)吸引本科生参与并开发编程作业，以加强VLSI-CAD领域的教学；3)利用各种资源招收妇女和少数民族学生，培养本科生和研究生。

Complexity and nano-scale non-idealities of modern electronic systems make it hard to achieve a high degree of validation before fabrication. Post-silicon debug of malfunctions is further complicated due to the limited chip interface with the outside world. The existing debug process is predominantly manual, time-consuming, and involves expensive equipments. Consequently, time-to-market and profit are directly at stake.This proposal proposes a methodology for automation of the post-silicon debug process. It relies on embedding and measuring special design structures to verify the "health" of the system, and on analysis methods using these measurements, to debug the cause of errors. Specifically, the attention is towards those malfunctions that manifest themselves in the form of timing errors, which cause setup and hold time violations in logic, and are the most cumbersome type of error to analyze. The proposed methodology identifies on-chip measurement sites of combinational and sequential logic, and analysis methods which are either real-time and workload-dependent, or static and based on guard-band computation, at both design and post-silicon stages.The education goals are improving teaching, diversity, and preparation of undergraduate and graduate students for the engineering practice and research. The following three tasks are proposed: 1) developing and teaching a case study based on the "One Laptop Per Child" project in an inter-disciplinary freshmen-level course; 2) engaging undergraduate students and developing programming assignments to enhance teaching in the VLSI-CAD area; 3) utilizing various resources to recruit women and minorities, and to train undergraduate and graduate students.