Fine-grained aging prediction based on the monitoring of run-time stress using DfT infrastructure

Abstract

Run-time solutions based on real-time monitoring and adaptation are required for resilience in nanoscale integrated circuits as design-time solutions and guard bands are no longer sufficient. Bias Temperature Instability (BTI)-induced transistor aging, one of the major reliability threats in nanoscale VLSI, degrades path delay over time and may eventually induce circuit failure due to timing violations. Chip health monitoring is, therefore, necessary to track delay changes on a per-chip basis. Chip-monitoring techniques based on actual measurement of path delays can only track a coarse-grained aging trend in a reactive manner. In this paper, we show how the on-chip design for test (DfT) infrastructure can be reused in order to perform fine-grain workload-induced stress monitoring for accurate aging prediction. The captured stress information is fed to a prediction model in real-time. The prediction model is trained offline using support-vector regression and implemented in software. This approach can leverage proactive adaptation techniques to mitigate further aging of the circuit by monitoring aging trends. Simulation results for realistic open-source benchmark circuits highlight the accuracy of the proposed approach.