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The impact of electromigration in copper interconnects on power grid integrity

Published: 29 May 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Electromigration (EM), a growing problem in on-chip interconnects, can cause wire resistances in a circuit to increase under stress, to the point of creating open circuits. Classical circuit-level EM models have two drawbacks: first, they do not accurately capture the physics of degradation in copper dual-damascene (CuDD) metallization, and second, they fail to model the inherent resilience in a circuit that keeps it functioning even after a wire fails. This work overcomes both limitations. For a single wire, our probabilistic analysis encapsulates known realities about CuDD wires, e.g., that some regions of these wires are more susceptible to EM than others, and that void formation/growth show statistical behavior. We apply these ideas to the analysis of on-chip power grids and demonstrate the inherent robustness of these grids that maintains supply integrity under some EM failures.

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Cited By

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  • (2023)Worst-case Power Integrity Prediction Using Convolutional Neural NetworkACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/356493228:4(1-19)Online publication date: 17-May-2023
  • (2023)Frequency-Domain Transient Electromigration Analysis Using Circuit Theory2023 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD)10.1109/ICCAD57390.2023.10323810(1-8)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2023
  • (2022)Recent Progress in Physics-Based Modeling of Electromigration in Integrated Circuit InterconnectsMicromachines10.3390/mi1306088313:6(883)Online publication date: 31-May-2022
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          cover image ACM Conferences
          DAC '13: Proceedings of the 50th Annual Design Automation Conference
          May 2013
          1285 pages
          ISBN:9781450320719
          DOI:10.1145/2463209
          Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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          Published: 29 May 2013

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          Author Tags

          1. electromigration
          2. power grid
          3. process variation
          4. robustness

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          Cited By

          View all
          • (2023)Worst-case Power Integrity Prediction Using Convolutional Neural NetworkACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/356493228:4(1-19)Online publication date: 17-May-2023
          • (2023)Frequency-Domain Transient Electromigration Analysis Using Circuit Theory2023 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD)10.1109/ICCAD57390.2023.10323810(1-8)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2023
          • (2022)Recent Progress in Physics-Based Modeling of Electromigration in Integrated Circuit InterconnectsMicromachines10.3390/mi1306088313:6(883)Online publication date: 31-May-2022
          • (2022)A Space–Time Neural Network for Analysis of Stress Evolution Under DC Current StressingIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2022.316610341:12(5501-5514)Online publication date: Dec-2022
          • (2022)Twin-Boundary Reduced Surface Diffusion on Electrically Stressed Copper NanowiresNano Letters10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c0343722:22(9071-9076)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
          • (2021)Analytical Modeling of Transient Electromigration Stress based on Boundary Reflections2021 IEEE/ACM International Conference On Computer Aided Design (ICCAD)10.1109/ICCAD51958.2021.9643570(1-8)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2021
          • (2021)A New, Computationally Efficient “Blech Criterion” for Immortality in General Interconnects2021 58th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC)10.1109/DAC18074.2021.9586127(913-918)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2021
          • (2020)Interconnect Electromigration Modeling and Analysis for Nanometer ICs: From Physics to Full-ChipIPSJ Transactions on System LSI Design Methodology10.2197/ipsjtsldm.13.4213(42-55)Online publication date: 2020
          • (2019)Electromigration-Aware Interconnect DesignProceedings of the 2019 International Symposium on Physical Design10.1145/3299902.3313156(83-90)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2019
          • (2019)High-Speed True Random Number Generator Based on Differential Current Starved Ring Oscillators with Improved Thermal Stability2019 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS)10.1109/ISCAS.2019.8702785(1-5)Online publication date: May-2019
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