Embedding infrastructure IP for SOC yield improvement

In addition to the functional IP cores, today's SOC necessitates embedding a special family of IP blocks, called infrastructure IP blocks. These are meant to ensure the manufacturability of the SOC and to achieve adequate levels of yield and reliability. The infrastructure IP leverages the manufacturing knowledge and feeds back the information into the design phase. This paper analyzes the key trends and challenges resulting in manufacturing susceptibility and field reliability that necessitate the use of such infrastructure IP. It also describes several examples of such embedded IPs for detection, analysis and correction.