An Application-Specific NBTI Ageing Analysis Method

Abbas, Haider, Halak, Basel and Zwolinski, Mark (2015) An Application-Specific NBTI Ageing Analysis Method. International Workshop on CMOS Variability, Rua da Fonte do Boi, 216 - Rio Vermelho, Bahia,, Brazil.

Abstract

There is growing concern about time-dependent
performance variations of CMOS devices due to ageing-induced
delay degradation. One of the main causes of ageing is Negative
Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI). Existing models which
predict the impact of NBTI on overall system performance
assume a generic switching activity of input signals of 50 percent.
Such an assumption can cause misleading predictions about
how a circuit’s performance will degrade over time and more
importantly which parts of the system will be most affected. This
work develops a novel NBTI ageing analysis which is based on
accurate calculations of the switching activity for applicationspecific
systems. The proposed method is employed to predict
the ageing of an ARM processor synthesised to 90nm technology.
Our results show the proposed ageing analysis techniques can
significantly reduce prediction errors (e.g. 39% for one of the
critical paths) compared to the generic models, it can also identify
more accurately the parts of the system which are most vulnerable
to ageing.

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Contributors

Author: Basel Halak

Author: Mark Zwolinski

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