Integrated circuit design for manufacturing through statisticalsimulation of process steps

The methodology, implementation, and results of a design for manufacturing (DFM) technique as applied to an integrated circuit boron base formation for an n-p-n transistor are presented. The primary purpose of the DFM technique is to achieve acceptable statistical prediction of the results by using the minimum number of variables and reducing the time required to perform physically based simulations. Excellent statistical results are achieved while the number of simulations is reduced by at least a factor of five if judicious statistical techniques are applied     

Novel Method for Nondestructive Body Effect Measurement in Dynamic Random Access Memory

Body effect is a key characteristic of a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cell transistor. The conventional method uses a test element structure or nano-probe equipment for body effect measurements. However, the test element structure measurement is inaccurate because the structure is located outside the DRAM chip. Additionally, the nano-probe destroys the chip while measuring the body effect in the chip. Therefore, we developed a novel nondestructive method to measure the body effect in the DRAM. This method uses a memory bitmap test system. The test system was originally a device that determines pass or fail of the cells. However, it was modified to extract the gate voltage that causes the failure due to a cell transistor leakage current. Because the leakage current is correlated to the threshold voltage, this gate voltage is a relative threshold voltage. The body effect was obtained by measuring the relative threshold voltage under different body biases. After confirming the method in a single cell, we simplified the method for a mass cell measurement. Two relative threshold voltages for each body bias were used for a fast and simple test. The mass measurement method could obtain 8196 body cell effects within 2 min. The results of the newly developed method were the same as that of the conventional test element structure measurement.     

A high-efficiency low-voltage class-E PA for IoT applications in sub-1 GHz frequency range

We present and propose a complete and iterative integrated-circuit and electro-magnetic (EM) co-design methodology and procedure for a low-voltage sub-1 GHz class-E PA. The presented class-E PA consists of the on-chip power transistor, the on-chip gate driving circuits, the off-chip tunable LC load network and the off-chip LC ladder low pass filter. The design methodology includes an explicit design equation based circuit components values'' analysis and numerical derivation, output power targeted transistor size and low pass filter design, and power efficiency oriented design optimization. The proposed design procedure includes the power efficiency oriented LC network tuning, the detailed circuit/EM co-simulation plan on integrated circuit level, package level and PCB level to ensure an accurate simulation to measurement match and first pass design success. The proposed PA is targeted to achieve more than 15 dBm output power delivery and 40% power efficiency at 433 MHz frequency band with 1.5 V low voltage supply. The LC load network is designed to be off-chip for the purpose of easy tuning and optimization. The same circuit can be extended to all sub-1 GHz applications with the same tuning and optimization on the load network at different frequencies. The amplifier is implemented in 0.13 μm CMOS technology with a core area occupation of 400 μm by 300 μm. Measurement results showed that it provided power delivery of 16.42 dBm at antenna with efficiency of 40.6%. A harmonics suppression of 44 dBc is achieved, making it suitable for massive deployment of IoT devices.     

Performance characteristics of SOI DRAM for low-power application

Process integration of cell capacitors that can circumvent the usual difficulties of large topographic height difference and high-temperature process are presented. A 16 Mbit silicon-on-insulator (SOI) DRAM with a 0.3 μm design rule is successfully fabricated and analyzed for processing integrity and circuit performance based on process integration of the cell capacitor using the pattern-bonded SOI (PBSOI) technology. Measurements for the strobe access time (tRAC) acid the operation current (I_ccl) show significant improvement (over 25%) for the SOI DRAM compared to those for the 16 Mbit bulk counterpart with the same circuit and layout. On the transistor side, ultra-low-voltage transistor technology using the body bias control schemes is also implemented and investigated. Devices with small leakage current and almost ideal subthreshold swing are obtained. The results give us guidance for transistor and process schematics for low-voltage DRAM application     

A new device design methodology for manufacturability

As future technology generations for integrated circuits continue to “shrink”, TCAD tools must be made more central to manufacturing issues; thus, yield optimization and design for manufacturing (DFM) should be addressed integrally with performance and reliability when using TCAD during the initial product design. This paper defines the goals for DFM in TCAD simulations and outlines a formal procedure for achieving an optimized result (ODFM). New design of experiments (DOE), weighted least squares modeling and multiple-objective mean-variance optimization methods are developed as significant parts of the new ODFM procedure. Examples of designing a 0.18-μm MOSFET device are given to show the impact of device design procedures on device performance distributions and sensitivity variance profiles     

Low voltage CMOS full adder cells

A formal design procedure for realising a minimal transistor CMOS XOR-XNOR cell using pass networks is presented that successfully scales down with power supply voltage and fully compensates for the threshold voltage drop in MOS transistors. A full adder using this cell is also presented     

Vertically self-aligned buried junction formation for ultrahigh-density DRAM applications

In this letter, we present a novel junction integration scheme that enables vertical transistors to have high performance, low leakage, and easy scalability. Controlled solid-phase diffusion is used to form the vertically self-aligned buried strap junction of the vertical transistor. The electric field at the capacitor node junction is carefully optimized by creating a graded junction profile, resulted from a combination of out-diffusion from Arsenic-doped poly-silicon and Phosphorus-doped oxide. The Phosphorus-doped oxide serves as the dopant source for the vertical lightly doped drain, as well as the spacer for the high dose junctions. Integration of the self-aligned junctions into a vertical transistor dynamic random access memory (DRAM) process flow is presented. Significant improvement in the retention characteristics of a 256-Mb DRAM product confirms the applicability of this newly developed junction integration scheme for future DRAM generations.     

ArchitectTM--MEM5系统级仿真及工艺分析工具

主要介绍了一种全新的设计方法,在标准的EDA设计环境里、采用可重复使用的MEMS设计库单元,使设计者能够对MEMS产品的工艺可行性作分析.这种设计方法是MEMS开发单位采用"面向加工的设计方法"的重要基础.     

Architect~(TM)——MEMS系统级仿真及工艺分析工具(英文)

主要介绍了一种全新的设计方法,在标准的EDA设计环境里、采用可重复使用的MEMS设计库单元,使设计者能够对MEMS产品的工艺可行性作分析。这种设计方法是MEMS开发单位采用“面向加工的设计方法”的重要基础。     

High-performance embedded SOI DRAM architecture for the low-powersupply

This paper presents the high-performance DRAM array and logic architecture for a sub-1.2-V embedded silicon-on-insulator (SOI) DRAM. The degradation of the transistor performance caused by boosted wordline voltage level is distinctly apparent in the low voltage range. In our proposed stressless SOI DRAM array, the applied electric field to the gate oxide of the memory-cell transistor can he relaxed. The crucial problem that the gate oxide of the embedded-DRAM process must be thicker than that of the logic process can be solved. As a result, the performance degradation of the logic transistor can be avoided without forming the gate oxides of the memory-cell array and the logic circuits individually. In addition, the data retention characteristics can be improved. Secondly, we propose the body-bias-controlled SOI-circuit architecture which enhances the performance of the logic circuit at sub-1.2-V power supply voltage, Experimental results verify that the proposed circuit architecture has the potential to reduce the gate-delay time up to 30% compared to the conventional one. This proposed architecture could provide high performance in the low-voltage embedded SOI DRAM     

Exploring the design space of mixed swing quadrail for low-powerdigital circuits

This paper describes and explores the design space of a mixed voltage swing methodology for lowering the energy per switching operation of digital circuits in standard submicron complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication processes. Employing mixed voltage swings expands the degrees of freedom available in the power-delay optimization space of static CMOS circuits. In order to study this design space and evaluate the power-delay tradeoffs, analytical polynomial formulations for power and delay of mixed swing circuits are derived and HSPICE simulation results are presented to demonstrate their accuracy. Efficient voltage scaling and transistor sizing techniques based on our analytical formulations are proposed for optimizing energy/operation subject to target delay constraints; up to 2.2× improvement in energy/operation is demonstrated for an ISCAS'85 benchmark circuit using these techniques. Experimental results from HSPICE simulations and measurements from an And-Or-Invert (AO1222) test chip fabricated in the Hewlett-Packard 0.5 μm process are presented to demonstrate up to 2,92× energy/operation savings for optimized mixed swing circuits compared to static CMOS     

A cell transistor scalable DRAM array architecture

Presents a new DRAM array architecture for scaled DRAMs. This scheme suppresses the stress bias for memory cell transistors and enables memory cell transistor scaling. In this scheme, the data "1" and data "0" are written to the memory cell in different timing. First, for all selected cells, data "1" is written by boosting wordline (WL) voltage. Second, after pulling down WL voltage to a lowered value, data "0" is written only for data "0" cells. This scheme reduces stress bias for the cell transistor to half of that of the conventional operation. The time loss for data "1" write is eliminated by parallel processing of data "1" write and sense amplifier activation. This scheme realizes fast cycle time of 50 ns. By adopting the proposed scheme, the gate-oxide thickness of the cell transistor is reduced from 5.5 to 3 nm, and the memory cell size is reduced to 87% in 0.13-μm DRAM generation. Moreover, the application of the oxide-stress relaxation technique to all row-path circuits as well as the proposed scheme enables high-performance DRAM with only a thin gate-oxide transistor     

Modular charge recycling pass transistor logic (MCRPL)

Modular charge recycling pass transistor logic (MCRPL) based on the charge recycling concept and a modular circuit design methodology is proposed for high speed and low power applications. In an 8 bit comparator, MCRPL improves the power-delay product over that obtained using dynamic differential cascode voltage switch (DCVS) logic and half-rail differential logic (HRDL) by 53 and 30%, respectively     

Advanced controlling scheme for a DRAM voltage generator system

An brief overview is given of the voltage generator system of a 1-Gb synchronous DRAM. The design serves as an example for a state-of-the-art DRAM voltage generator system. A general analysis of the required controlling functionality is derived. A universal and flexible controlling scheme for a voltage generator system is presented, which can easily be modified for future voltage generator design. The main aspect of this controlling scheme is a clear separation between logic (digital) controlling functions and (analog) voltage generating functions. A control path that supplies the various voltage generator blocks with configuration information is introduced. Last, the control path is shown to have an additional advantage of increased testability. Hardware results verifying the concept are presented     

Technology challenges for integration near and below 0.1 μm

Technology challenges for silicon integrated circuits with a design rule of 0.1 μm and below are addressed. We begin by reviewing the state-of-the-art CMOS technology at 0.25 μm currently in development, covering a logic-oriented processes and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) processes. CMOS transistor structures are compared by introducing a figure of merit. We then examine scaling guidelines for 0.1 μm which has started to deviate for optimized performance from the classical theory of constant-field scaling. This highlights the problem of nontrivial subthreshold current associated with the scaled-down CMOS with low threshold voltages. Interconnect issues are then considered to assess the performance of microprocessors in 0.1 μm technology. 0.1 μm technology will enable a microprocessor which runs at 1000 MHz with 500 million transistors. Challenges below 0.1 μm are then addressed. New transistor and circuit possibilities such as silicon on insulator (SOI), dynamic-threshold (DT) MOSFET, and back-gate input MOS (BMOS) are discussed. Two problems below 0.1 μm are highlighted. They are threshold voltage control and pattern printing. It is pointed out that the threshold voltage variations due to doping fluctuations is a limiting factor for scaling CMOS transistors for high performance. The problem with lithography below 0.1 μm is the low throughput for a single probe. The use of massively parallel scanning probe assemblies working over the entire wafer is suggested to overcome the problem of low throughput     

Circuit techniques for 1.5-3.6-V battery-operated 64-Mb DRAM

Circuit techniques for battery-operated DRAMs which cover supply voltages from 1.5 to 3.6 V (universal V_cc), as well as their applications to an experimental 64-Mb DRAM, are presented. The universal-V_cc DRAM concept features a low-voltage (1.5 V) DRAM core and an on-chip power supply unit optimized for the operation of the DRAM. A circuit technique for oxide-stress relaxation is proposed to improve high-voltage sustaining characteristics while only scaled MOSFETs are used in the entire chip. This technique increases sustaining voltage by about 1.5 V compared with conventional circuits and allows scaled MOSFETs to be used for the circuits, which can be operated from an external V_cc of up to 4 V. A two-way power supply scheme is proposed to suppress the internal voltage fluctuation within 10% when the DRAM is operated from external power supply voltages ranging from 1.5 to 3.6 V. An experimental 1.5-3.6-V 64-Mb DRAM is designed based on these techniques and fabricated by using 0.3-μm electron-beam lithography. An almost constant access time of 70 ns is obtained. This indicates that battery operation is a promising target for future DRAMs     

A 60-MHz 240-mW MPEG-4 videophone LSI with 16-Mb embedded DRAM

A 240-mW single-chip MPEG-4 videophone LSI with a 16-Mb embedded DRAM is fabricated utilizing a 0.25-μm CMOS triple-well quad-metal technology. The videophone LSI is applied to the 3GPP 3G-324M video-telephony standard for IMT-2000, and implements the MPEG-4 video SPL1 codec, the AMR speech codec, and the ITU-T H.223 Annex B multiplexing/demultiplexing at the same time. Three 16-bit multimedia-extended RISC processors, dedicated hardware accelerators, and a 16-Mb embedded DRAM are integrated on a 10.84 mm×10.84 mm die. It also integrates camera, display, audio, and network interfaces required for a mobile video-phone terminal. In addition to conventional low-power techniques, such as clock gating and parallel operation, some new low-power techniques are also employed. These include an embedded DRAM with optimized configuration, a low-power motion estimator, and the adoption of the variable-threshold voltage CMOS (VT-CMOS). The MPEG-4 videophone LSI consumes 240 mW at 60 MHz, which is only 22% of that for a conventional multichip design. Variable threshold voltage CMOS reduces standby leakage current to 26 μA, which is only 17% of that for the conventional CMOS design     

Dual-operating-voltage scheme for a single 5-V 16-Mbit DRAM

A dual-operating-voltage scheme (5 V for peripheral circuits and 3.3 V for the memory array) is shown to be the best approach for a single 5-V 16-Mb DRAM (dynamic random-access memory). This is because the conventional scaling rule cannot apply to DRAM design due to the inherent DRAM word-line boosting feature. A novel internal voltage generator to realize this approach is presented. Its features are the switching of two reference voltages, a driver using a PMOS-load differential amplifier, and the word-line boost based on the regulated voltage, which can ensure a wider memory margin than conventional circuits. This approach is applied to an experimental 16-Mb DRAM. A 0.5% supply-voltage dependency and 30-ns recovery time are achieved     

Approaches to extra low voltage DRAM operation by SOI-DRAM

The newly designed scheme for a low-voltage 16 MDRAM/SOI has been successfully realized and the functional DRAM operation has been obtained at very low supply voltage below 1 V. The key process and circuit technologies for low-voltage/high-speed SOI-DRAM will be described here. The extra low voltage DRAM technologies are composed of the modified MESA isolation without parasitic MOS operation, the dual gate SOI-MOSFETs with tied or floating bodies optimized for DRAM specific circuits, the conventional stacked capacitor with increased capacitance by thinner dielectric film, and the other bulk-Si compatible DRAM structure. Moreover, a body bias control technique was applied for body-tied MOSFETs to realize high performance even at low voltage. Integrating the above technologies in the newly designed 0.5-μm 16 MDRAM, high-speed DRAM operation of less than 50 ns has been obtained at low supply voltage of 1 V     

A compact thermal noise model for the investigation of soft errorrates in MOS VLSI digital circuits

A compact VLSI MOSFET model that includes an integrated thermal noise model and a methodology for the analysis of the effects of thermal noise on the performance and error rates of digital integrated circuits is presented. The usefulness of the model and methodology is demonstrated by comparing simulation results for signal-to-noise ratio to analytic results for the balanced bit-line architecture of the single-device DRAM and the associated cross-coupled pair sense amplifier. The design options and tradeoffs related to thermal noise are introduced for both the balanced bit lines and the sense amplifier are considered. The error rate as a function of signal-to-noise ratio is determined, and possible limits to DRAM construction due to inherent thermal noise are highlighted