Multiple criterion optimization with yield maximization

A number of recent papers have described circuit optimization methods in which maximizing yield was the sole design criterion. However, in actual practice there are many competing design criteria such as minimizing power and area, maximizing speed, etc., as well as maximizing yield. In this paper the techniques of Multiple Criterion Optimization (MCO) are used to provide a framework within which to consider all of these objectives simultaneously. Towards this end a theoretical foundation for the analysis of geometrically based yield algorithms is introduced. This framework can be used to investigate the yield estimation algorithms of Director, Hachtel and Brayton, and Bandler and Abdel-Malek. By combining features from both of these methods, a new yield estimation scheme is developed which is better suited to the needs of the MCO problem. The ideas of MCO and the new yield estimation procedure are applied to the design of a two-input MOSFET NAND gate.