Analysis of Dynamic Faults in Embedded-SRAMs: Implications for Memory Test

This paper presents the results of resistive-open defect insertion in different locations of Infineon 0.13 m embedded-SRAM with the main purpose of verifying the presence of dynamic faults. This study is based on the injection of resistive defects as their presence in VDSM technologies is more and more frequent. Electrical simulations have been performed to evaluate the effects of those defects in terms of detected functional faults. Read destructive, deceptive read destructive and dynamic read destructive faults have been reproduced and accurately characterized. The dependence of the fault detection has been put in relation with memory operating conditions, resistance value and clock cycle, and the importance of at speed testing for dynamic fault models has been pointed out. Finally resistive Address Decoder Open Faults (ADOF) have been simulated and the conditions that maximize the fault detection have been discussed as well as the resulting implications for memory test.This work has been partially funded by the French government under the framework of the MEDEA + A503 ASSOCIATE European program.A paper based on this work was presented at the Eighth IEEE European Test Workshop, Maastricht, The Netherlands, May 2003.Simone Borri received the M.Sc. Degree (summa cum laude) in Electronics Engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 1995. In 1997 he joined STMicroelectronics as a digital designer in the DSP development group of S.S.D. (formerly Parthus, now Ceva), Dublin, Ireland. From 1998 to 2000 he was with ST Microelectronics, Milan, Italy as ASIC DSP designer in the Car Communication business unit. Since 2000 he is with Infineon Technologies, Sophia-Antipolis, France as Staff design engineer in the embedded-SRAM design group. He has recently joined the Secure Mobile System Business Unit. His current interests include BIST, DFT techniques and SoC verification. Simone is an IEEE member since 1995.Magali Hage-Hassan was born near Lyon (France) in 1979. She received a Master of Science degree of Microelectronics and Automatics from the Institute of Engineering Sciences of Montpellier in 2003. She is currently working for Infineon in the memory library department in Sophia-Antipolis. She participated to the European research project MEDEA associate. Hage-Hassans interest include memory test.Luigi Dilillo was born in Barletta (Italy) in 1974. At this moment he is doing his last year of Ph.D. in the Microelectronics Department of the Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and Microelectronics of Montpellier (LIRMM) in France. He received his degree in Electrical Engineering in 2001, at Politecnico di Torino (Italy). His researches include MEMS and digital circuits. At this moment he is working on delay-fault testing, and memory testing.Patrick Girard is presently Researcher at CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research), and works in the Microelectronics Department of the LIRMM (Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and Microelectronics of Montpellier—France). His research interests include the various aspects of digital testing, with special emphasis on DfT, logic BIST, delay fault testing and diagnosis, low power testing and memory testing. He has authored and co-authored 1 book and more than 100 papers on these fields. He has managed several European research projects and industrial research contracts. He is Editor-in-Chief of JOLPE—Journal of Low Power Electronics, and Associate Editor of JEC—Journal of Embedded Computing. He will serve as Program vice-Chair for the International Conference on Embedded And Ubiquitous Computing in 2005 and as Program Chair for the IEEE International Workshop on Electronic Design, Test & Applications in 2006. He is also topic chair of two European conferences (DATE and ETS) and is member of the program committee of several other international conferences. Patrick GIRARD obtained the Ph.D. degree in microelectronics from the University of Montpellier in 1992 and the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches degree from the University of Montpellier in 2003.Serge Pravossoudovitch was born in 1957. He is currently professor in the electrical and computer engineering department of the University of Montpellier and his research activities are performed at LIRMM (Laboratoire dInformatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier). He got the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1983 for his work on symbolic layout for IC design. Since 1984, he is working in the testing domain. He obtained the doctorat détat degree in 1987 for his work on switch level automatic test pattern generation. He is presently interested in memory testing, delay fault testing, design for testability and power consumption optimization. He has authored and co-authored numerous papers on these fields, and has supervised several Ph.D. dissertations. He has also participated to several European projects (Microelectronic regulation, Esprit, Medea).Arnaud Virazel was born in Montpellier (France) in 1974. He is presently assistant professor at the university of Montpellier, and works with the LIRMM (Laboratoire dInformatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier). He received the B.Sc. (1995) and the M.Sc. (1997) degrees in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. (2001) degree in Microelectronics, all from the University of Montpellier/LIRMM. A. Virazels interests include delay testing, memory testing and power optimization during test.