RELIC: A Reliability Simulator for Integrated Circuits,

Abstract

Abstract : Many of the failure mechanisms which cause reliability problems in VLSI chips can be influenced or avoided in the circuit design phase. RELIC is a reliability simulator developed to analyze and predict the stress and wear on MOS VLSI chips due to such mechanisms. RELIC uses a simple methodology for abstracting the idea of the stress from any particular failure mechanism, thus allowing analyses of many different failure mechanisms. There are currently three failure mechanisms analyzed by RELIC: metal migration, hot-electron trapping, and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB).