Sleep Transistors to Improve the Process Variability and Soft Error Susceptibility

This paper evaluates the potential of using the sleep transistor in FinFET logic cells to mitigate the process variability effects and the soft error susceptibility. The insertion of a sleep transistor improves up to 40.6% the delay variability and up to 12.4% the power variability. Moreover, the design with a sleep transistor became all logic cells investigated free of faults, independently of the supply voltage applied in the design.

[1]  Massimo Alioto,et al.  Variations in Nanometer CMOS Flip-Flops: Part I—Impact of Process Variations on Timing , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[2]  Michael L. Rieger Communication theory in optical lithography , 2012 .

[3]  L. Artola,et al.  Mitigation of process variability effects using decoupling cells , 2019, Microelectronics Reliability.

[4]  Lawrence T. Clark,et al.  ASAP7 predictive design kit development and cell design technology co-optimization: Invited paper , 2017, 2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD).

[5]  Saurabh Sinha,et al.  ASAP7: A 7-nm finFET predictive process design kit , 2016, Microelectron. J..

[6]  Ricardo Reis,et al.  Exploring Multi-level Design to Mitigate Variability and Radiation Effects on 7nm FinFET Logic Cells , 2018, 2018 25th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems (ICECS).

[7]  Soonyoung Lee,et al.  Radiation-induced soft error rate analyses for 14 nm FinFET SRAM devices , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium.

[8]  Asen Asenov,et al.  Process Variability for Devices at and beyond the 7 nm Node , 2018 .

[9]  Ru Huang,et al.  A Device-Level Characterization Approach to Quantify the Impacts of Different Random Variation Sources in FinFET Technology , 2016, IEEE Electron Device Letters.

[10]  Xuan Li,et al.  The alignment performance study for the gate layer in FinFet processes , 2016, 2016 China Semiconductor Technology International Conference (CSTIC).

[11]  Enrico Macii,et al.  NBTI-aware power gating for concurrent leakage and aging optimization , 2009, ISLPED.

[12]  A. Rubio,et al.  A single event transient hardening circuit design technique based on strengthening , 2013, 2013 IEEE 56th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS).

[13]  J. S. Kauppila,et al.  Dual-Interlocked Logic for Single-Event Transient Mitigation , 2018, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[14]  Hassan Mostafa,et al.  The impact of FinFET technology scaling on critical path performance under process variations , 2015, 5th International Conference on Energy Aware Computing Systems & Applications.

[15]  Enrico Macii,et al.  Power-Gating for Leakage Control and Beyond , 2015 .

[16]  Guillaume Hubert,et al.  Single-Event Transient Modeling in a 65-nm Bulk CMOS Technology Based on Multi-Physical Approach and Electrical Simulations , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.