Reliability-Aware Design of Systems on Chip (SoCs)

世界正在目睹智能设备和系统的无情渗透，这些设备和系统推动了世界所有经济部门、世界所有建筑和自然环境以及外太空的应用。半导体器件（晶体管）构成了集成电路（ic）和片上系统（soc）的构建模块，而soc反过来又构成了实现这种强大部署的底层技术。CMOS指的是用于目前部署的绝大多数电子系统的半导体制造技术，预计在未来几年内仍将继续使用。几十年来，CMOS制造技术一直处于缩小的轨道上，允许不断增加的晶体管数量，并产生不断提高的系统性能（速度）和能力。晶体管的可靠性一直是集成电路制造商和系统集成商考虑的一个因素。然而，这种可靠性考虑现在达到了前所未有的重要性和挑战。原因有两个：1)在可能恶劣的环境中，需要大量的新（er）产品在很长一段时间（几年或几十年）内保持有保证的性能水平，例如汽车、通信基础设施、物联网（IOT）；2)随着CMOS持续扩展而出现的老化（性能随时间退化）机制的相对重要性（影响）和复杂性都在不断增长。该项目解决了这两个因素，旨在提供解决方案，以满足更高的可靠性要求，考虑到更复杂和不了解的失效机制。我们的努力将使IC制造商受益，最重要的是，IC和系统设计师面临日益严峻的可靠性挑战的组织（如华为）。加拿大有大量的公司专注于为多种应用设计集成电路。该项目的成果将使所有这些公司受益，使他们能够更经济、更快速地满足可靠性要求，从而增强他们的竞争力。

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.