Quantitatively analyzing the performance of integrated circuits and their reliability

Engineers make significant efforts to quantitatively analyzing the performance of integrated circuits (IC) and their reliability. The ability to analyze and understand the impact that specific operating parameters have on device reliability is essential to mitigate the risk of system degradation which will affect measurements being taken by the system and cause early failure of that system. There are four semiconductor failure mechanisms in silicon-based ICs that are analyzed, such as electromigration (EM), time dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB), hot carrier injection (HCI), and negative bias temperature instability (NBTI). Mitigation of these inherent failure mechanisms is possible when reliability can be quantitatively calculated. Algorithms folded into a software application have been designed to calculate a failure rate, give confidence intervals, and produce a lifetime curve using steady state and wearout failure rates for the IC being analyzed.