25 research outputs found

    Reliable Design of Three-Dimensional Integrated Circuits

    Get PDF

    Design-for-Test and Test Optimization Techniques for TSV-based 3D Stacked ICs

    Get PDF
    <p>As integrated circuits (ICs) continue to scale to smaller dimensions, long interconnects</p><p>have become the dominant contributor to circuit delay and a significant component of</p><p>power consumption. In order to reduce the length of these interconnects, 3D integration</p><p>and 3D stacked ICs (3D SICs) are active areas of research in both academia and industry.</p><p>3D SICs not only have the potential to reduce average interconnect length and alleviate</p><p>many of the problems caused by long global interconnects, but they can offer greater design</p><p>flexibility over 2D ICs, significant reductions in power consumption and footprint in</p><p>an era of mobile applications, increased on-chip data bandwidth through delay reduction,</p><p>and improved heterogeneous integration.</p><p>Compared to 2D ICs, the manufacture and test of 3D ICs is significantly more complex.</p><p>Through-silicon vias (TSVs), which constitute the dense vertical interconnects in a</p><p>die stack, are a source of additional and unique defects not seen before in ICs. At the same</p><p>time, testing these TSVs, especially before die stacking, is recognized as a major challenge.</p><p>The testing of a 3D stack is constrained by limited test access, test pin availability,</p><p>power, and thermal constraints. Therefore, efficient and optimized test architectures are</p><p>needed to ensure that pre-bond, partial, and complete stack testing are not prohibitively</p><p>expensive.</p><p>Methods of testing TSVs prior to bonding continue to be a difficult problem due to test</p><p>access and testability issues. Although some built-in self-test (BIST) techniques have been</p><p>proposed, these techniques have numerous drawbacks that render them impractical. In this dissertation, a low-cost test architecture is introduced to enable pre-bond TSV test through</p><p>TSV probing. This has the benefit of not needing large analog test components on the die,</p><p>which is a significant drawback of many BIST architectures. Coupled with an optimization</p><p>method described in this dissertation to create parallel test groups for TSVs, test time for</p><p>pre-bond TSV tests can be significantly reduced. The pre-bond probing methodology is</p><p>expanded upon to allow for pre-bond scan test as well, to enable both pre-bond TSV and</p><p>structural test to bring pre-bond known-good-die (KGD) test under a single test paradigm.</p><p>The addition of boundary registers on functional TSV paths required for pre-bond</p><p>probing results in an increase in delay on inter-die functional paths. This cost of test</p><p>architecture insertion can be a significant drawback, especially considering that one benefit</p><p>of 3D integration is that critical paths can be partitioned between dies to reduce their delay.</p><p>This dissertation derives a retiming flow that is used to recover the additional delay added</p><p>to TSV paths by test cell insertion.</p><p>Reducing the cost of test for 3D-SICs is crucial considering that more tests are necessary</p><p>during 3D-SIC manufacturing. To reduce test cost, the test architecture and test</p><p>scheduling for the stack must be optimized to reduce test time across all necessary test</p><p>insertions. This dissertation examines three paradigms for 3D integration - hard dies, firm</p><p>dies, and soft dies, that give varying degrees of control over 2D test architectures on each</p><p>die while optimizing the 3D test architecture. Integer linear programming models are developed</p><p>to provide an optimal 3D test architecture and test schedule for the dies in the 3D</p><p>stack considering any or all post-bond test insertions. Results show that the ILP models</p><p>outperform other optimization methods across a range of 3D benchmark circuits.</p><p>In summary, this dissertation targets testing and design-for-test (DFT) of 3D SICs.</p><p>The proposed techniques enable pre-bond TSV and structural test while maintaining a</p><p>relatively low test cost. Future work will continue to enable testing of 3D SICs to move</p><p>industry closer to realizing the true potential of 3D integration.</p>Dissertatio

    Design for pre-bond testability in 3D integrated circuits

    Get PDF
    In this dissertation we propose several DFT techniques specific to 3D stacked IC systems. The goal has explicitly been to create techniques that integrate easily with existing IC test systems. Specifically, this means utilizing scan- and wrapper-based techniques, two foundations of the digital IC test industry. First, we describe a general test architecture for 3D ICs. In this architecture, each tier of a 3D design is wrapped in test control logic that both manages tier test pre-bond and integrates the tier into the large test architecture post-bond. We describe a new kind of boundary scan to provide the necessary test control and observation of the partial circuits, and we propose a new design methodology for test hardcore that ensures both pre-bond functionality and post-bond optimality. We present the application of these techniques to the 3D-MAPS test vehicle, which has proven their effectiveness. Second, we extend these DFT techniques to circuit-partitioned designs. We find that boundary scan design is generally sufficient, but that some 3D designs require special DFT treatment. Most importantly, we demonstrate that the functional partitioning inherent in 3D design can potentially decrease the total test cost of verifying a circuit. Third, we present a new CAD algorithm for designing 3D test wrappers. This algorithm co-designs the pre-bond and post-bond wrappers to simultaneously minimize test time and routing cost. On average, our algorithm utilizes over 90% of the wires in both the pre-bond and post-bond wrappers. Finally, we look at the 3D vias themselves to develop a low-cost, high-volume pre-bond test methodology appropriate for production-level test. We describe the shorting probes methodology, wherein large test probes are used to contact multiple small 3D vias. This technique is an all-digital test method that integrates seamlessly into existing test flows. Our experimental results demonstrate two key facts: neither the large capacitance of the probe tips nor the process variation in the 3D vias and the probe tips significantly hinders the testability of the circuits. Taken together, this body of work defines a complete test methodology for testing 3D ICs pre-bond, eliminating one of the key hurdles to the commercialization of 3D technology.PhDCommittee Chair: Lee, Hsien-Hsin; Committee Member: Bakir, Muhannad; Committee Member: Lim, Sung Kyu; Committee Member: Vuduc, Richard; Committee Member: Yalamanchili, Sudhaka

    Thermal Issues in Testing of Advanced Systems on Chip

    Full text link

    Conception et test des circuits et systèmes numériques à haute fiabilité et sécurité

    Get PDF
    Research activities I carried on after my nomination as Chargé de Recherche deal with the definition of methodologies and tools for the design, the test and the reliability of secure digital circuits and trustworthy manufacturing. More recently, we have started a new research activity on the test of 3D stacked Integrated CIrcuits, based on the use of Through Silicon Vias. Moreover, thanks to the relationships I have maintained after my post-doc in Italy, I have kept on cooperating with Politecnico di Torino on the topics related to test and reliability of memories and microprocessors.Secure and Trusted DevicesSecurity is a critical part of information and communication technologies and it is the necessary basis for obtaining confidentiality, authentication, and integrity of data. The importance of security is confirmed by the extremely high growth of the smart-card market in the last 20 years. It is reported in "Le monde Informatique" in the article "Computer Crime and Security Survey" in 2007 that financial losses due to attacks on "secure objects" in the digital world are greater than $11 Billions. Since the race among developers of these secure devices and attackers accelerates, also due to the heterogeneity of new systems and their number, the improvement of the resistance of such components becomes today’s major challenge.Concerning all the possible security threats, the vulnerability of electronic devices that implement cryptography functions (including smart cards, electronic passports) has become the Achille’s heel in the last decade. Indeed, even though recent crypto-algorithms have been proven resistant to cryptanalysis, certain fraudulent manipulations on the hardware implementing such algorithms can allow extracting confidential information. So-called Side-Channel Attacks have been the first type of attacks that target the physical device. They are based on information gathered from the physical implementation of a cryptosystem. For instance, by correlating the power consumed and the data manipulated by the device, it is possible to discover the secret encryption key. Nevertheless, this point is widely addressed and integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers have already developed different kinds of countermeasures.More recently, new threats have menaced secure devices and the security of the manufacturing process. A first issue is the trustworthiness of the manufacturing process. From one side, secure devices must assure a very high production quality in order not to leak confidential information due to a malfunctioning of the device. Therefore, possible defects due to manufacturing imperfections must be detected. This requires high-quality test procedures that rely on the use of test features that increases the controllability and the observability of inner points of the circuit. Unfortunately, this is harmful from a security point of view, and therefore the access to these test features must be protected from unauthorized users. Another harm is related to the possibility for an untrusted manufacturer to do malicious alterations to the design (for instance to bypass or to disable the security fence of the system). Nowadays, many steps of the production cycle of a circuit are outsourced. For economic reasons, the manufacturing process is often carried out by foundries located in foreign countries. The threat brought by so-called Hardware Trojan Horses, which was long considered theoretical, begins to materialize.A second issue is the hazard of faults that can appear during the circuit’s lifetime and that may affect the circuit behavior by way of soft errors or deliberate manipulations, called Fault Attacks. They can be based on the intentional modification of the circuit’s environment (e.g., applying extreme temperature, exposing the IC to radiation, X-rays, ultra-violet or visible light, or tampering with clock frequency) in such a way that the function implemented by the device generates an erroneous result. The attacker can discover secret information by comparing the erroneous result with the correct one. In-the-field detection of any failing behavior is therefore of prime interest for taking further action, such as discontinuing operation or triggering an alarm. In addition, today’s smart cards use 90nm technology and according to the various suppliers of chip, 65nm technology will be effective on the horizon 2013-2014. Since the energy required to force a transistor to switch is reduced for these new technologies, next-generation secure systems will become even more sensitive to various classes of fault attacks.Based on these considerations, within the group I work with, we have proposed new methods, architectures and tools to solve the following problems:• Test of secure devices: unfortunately, classical techniques for digital circuit testing cannot be easily used in this context. Indeed, classical testing solutions are based on the use of Design-For-Testability techniques that add hardware components to the circuit, aiming to provide full controllability and observability of internal states. Because crypto‐ processors and others cores in a secure system must pass through high‐quality test procedures to ensure that data are correctly processed, testing of crypto chips faces a dilemma. In fact design‐for‐testability schemes want to provide high controllability and observability of the device while security wants minimal controllability and observability in order to hide the secret. We have therefore proposed, form one side, the use of enhanced scan-based test techniques that exploit compaction schemes to reduce the observability of internal information while preserving the high level of testability. From the other side, we have proposed the use of Built-In Self-Test for such devices in order to avoid scan chain based test.• Reliability of secure devices: we proposed an on-line self-test architecture for hardware implementation of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). The solution exploits the inherent spatial replications of a parallel architecture for implementing functional redundancy at low cost.• Fault Attacks: one of the most powerful types of attack for secure devices is based on the intentional injection of faults (for instance by using a laser beam) into the system while an encryption occurs. By comparing the outputs of the circuits with and without the injection of the fault, it is possible to identify the secret key. To face this problem we have analyzed how to use error detection and correction codes as counter measure against this type of attack, and we have proposed a new code-based architecture. Moreover, we have proposed a bulk built-in current-sensor that allows detecting the presence of undesired current in the substrate of the CMOS device.• Fault simulation: to evaluate the effectiveness of countermeasures against fault attacks, we developed an open source fault simulator able to perform fault simulation for the most classical fault models as well as user-defined electrical level fault models, to accurately model the effect of laser injections on CMOS circuits.• Side-Channel attacks: they exploit physical data-related information leaking from the device (e.g. current consumption or electro-magnetic emission). One of the most intensively studied attacks is the Differential Power Analysis (DPA) that relies on the observation of the chip power fluctuations during data processing. I studied this type of attack in order to evaluate the influence of the countermeasures against fault attack on the power consumption of the device. Indeed, the introduction of countermeasures for one type of attack could lead to the insertion of some circuitry whose power consumption is related to the secret key, thus allowing another type of attack more easily. We have developed a flexible integrated simulation-based environment that allows validating a digital circuit when the device is attacked by means of this attack. All architectures we designed have been validated through this tool. Moreover, we developed a methodology that allows to drastically reduce the time required to validate countermeasures against this type of attack.TSV- based 3D Stacked Integrated Circuits TestThe stacking process of integrated circuits using TSVs (Through Silicon Via) is a promising technology that keeps the development of the integration more than Moore’s law, where TSVs enable to tightly integrate various dies in a 3D fashion. Nevertheless, 3D integrated circuits present many test challenges including the test at different levels of the 3D fabrication process: pre-, mid-, and post- bond tests. Pre-bond test targets the individual dies at wafer level, by testing not only classical logic (digital logic, IOs, RAM, etc) but also unbounded TSVs. Mid-bond test targets the test of partially assembled 3D stacks, whereas finally post-bond test targets the final circuit.The activities carried out within this topic cover 2 main issues:• Pre-bond test of TSVs: the electrical model of a TSV buried within the substrate of a CMOS circuit is a capacitance connected to ground (when the substrate is connected to ground). The main assumption is that a defect may affect the value of that capacitance. By measuring the variation of the capacitance’s value it is possible to check whether the TSV is correctly fabricated or not. We have proposed a method to measure the value of the capacitance based on the charge/ discharge delay of the RC network containing the TSV.• Test infrastructures for 3D stacked Integrated Circuits: testing a die before stacking to another die introduces the problem of a dynamic test infrastructure, where test data must be routed to a specific die based on the reached fabrication step. New solutions are proposed in literature that allow reconfiguring the test paths within the circuit, based on on-the-fly requirements. We have started working on an extension of the IEEE P1687 test standard that makes use of an automatic die-detection based on pull-up resistors.Memory and Microprocessor Test and ReliabilityThanks to device shrinking and miniaturization of fabrication technology, performances of microprocessors and of memories have grown of more than 5 magnitude order in the last 30 years. With this technology trend, it is necessary to face new problems and challenges, such as reliability, transient errors, variability and aging.In the last five years I’ve worked in cooperation with the Testgroup of Politecnico di Torino (Italy) to propose a new method to on-line validate the correctness of the program execution of a microprocessor. The main idea is to monitor a small set of control signals of the processors in order to identify incorrect activation sequences. This approach can detect both permanent and transient errors of the internal logic of the processor.Concerning the test of memories, we have proposed a new approach to automatically generate test programs starting from a functional description of the possible faults in the memory.Moreover, we proposed a new methodology, based on microprocessor error probability profiling, that aims at estimating fault injection results without the need of a typical fault injection setup. The proposed methodology is based on two main ideas: a one-time fault-injection analysis of the microprocessor architecture to characterize the probability of successful execution of each of its instructions in presence of a soft-error, and a static and very fast analysis of the control and data flow of the target software application to compute its probability of success

    공정변이를 고려한 3차원 집적 회로 설계 및 패키징 기법

    Get PDF
    학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 전기·컴퓨터공학부, 2014. 2. 김태환.As CMOS scaling down, The control of variation in chip performance (i.e. speed and power) becomes highly important to improve the chip yield. The increased variation of chip performance demands additional design efforts such as the increase of guard-band or longer design turnaround time (TAT), which cause degradation of both chip performance and economic profit. Meanwhile, through-silicon via (TSV) based 3D technology has been regarded as the promising solution for long interconnect wire and huge die size problem. Since a 3D IC is manufactured by stacking multiple dies which are fabricated in different wafers, integration of the dies that have far different process characteristic can enlarge the difference of device performance on different dies within a single chip. In this dissertation, we analyze the effect of on-package (within-chip) variation on 3D IC and presents effective methods to mitigate the onpackage variation. First, a parametric yield improvement method is presented to resolve the mismatches of dies having different process characteristic. Comprehensive 3D integration algorithms considering post-silicon tuning technique is developed for the multi-layered 3D IC. Then, we show that a careful clock edge embedding in 3D clock tree can greatly reduce the impact of on-package variation on 3D clock skew and propose a two-step solution for the problem of on-package variation-aware layer embedding in 3D clock tree synthesis. In summary, this dissertation presents effective 3D integration method and 3D clock tree synthesis algorithm for process-variation tolerant 3D IC designs.Abstract i Contents ii List of Figures iv List of Tables vii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Process Variation in 3D ICs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Contributions of This Dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 Post-silicon Tuning Aware Die/WaferMatching Algorithms for Enhancing Parametric Yield of 3D IC Design 7 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.3 The Die-to-Die Matching Problem and Proposed Algorithm Considering Body Biasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.3.1 Motivation and Problem Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.3.2 The Proposed Die-to-Die Matching Algorithm . . . . . . . . 15 2.4 TheWafer-to-Wafer Matching Problem and Proposed Algorithm Considering Body Biasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.4.1 Problem Definition and The Proposed Wafer-to-Wafer Matching Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.5 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3 Edge Layer Embedding Algorithm for Mitigating On-Package Variation in 3D Clock Tree Synthesis 32 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.2 Problem Definitions and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.3 The Proposed Algorithm for On-Package Variation Aware Edge Embedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 3.3.1 Algorithm for Maximizing Layer Sharing of Edges . . . . . . 39 3.3.2 Refinement: Partial Edge Embedding on Layers . . . . . . . . 47 3.3.3 Clock Tree Routing and Buffer Insertion . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 3.4 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 4 Conclusion 64 4.1 Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 4.2 Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Abstract in Korean 72Docto

    MICROELECTRONICS PACKAGING TECHNOLOGY ROADMAPS, ASSEMBLY RELIABILITY, AND PROGNOSTICS

    Get PDF
    This paper reviews the industry roadmaps on commercial-off-the shelf (COTS) microelectronics packaging technologies covering the current trends toward further reducing size and increasing functionality. Due tothe breadth of work being performed in this field, this paper presents only a number of key packaging technologies. The topics for each category were down-selected by reviewing reports of industry roadmaps including the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductor (ITRS) and by surveying publications of the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) and the roadmap of association connecting electronics industry (IPC). The paper also summarizes the findings of numerous articles and websites that allotted to the emerging and trends in microelectronics packaging technologies. A brief discussion was presented on packaging hierarchy from die to package and to system levels. Key elements of reliability for packaging assemblies were presented followed by reliabilty definition from a probablistic failure perspective. An example was present for showing conventional reliability approach using Monte Carlo simulation results for a number of plastic ball grid array (PBGA). The simulation results were compared to experimental thermal cycle test data. Prognostic health monitoring (PHM) methods, a growing field for microelectronics packaging technologies, were briefly discussed. The artificial neural network (ANN), a data-driven PHM, was discussed in details. Finally, it presented inter- and extra-polations using ANN simulation for thermal cycle test data of PBGA and ceramic BGA (CBGA) assemblies

    High-Density Solid-State Memory Devices and Technologies

    Get PDF
    This Special Issue aims to examine high-density solid-state memory devices and technologies from various standpoints in an attempt to foster their continuous success in the future. Considering that broadening of the range of applications will likely offer different types of solid-state memories their chance in the spotlight, the Special Issue is not focused on a specific storage solution but rather embraces all the most relevant solid-state memory devices and technologies currently on stage. Even the subjects dealt with in this Special Issue are widespread, ranging from process and design issues/innovations to the experimental and theoretical analysis of the operation and from the performance and reliability of memory devices and arrays to the exploitation of solid-state memories to pursue new computing paradigms

    Wireless Testing of Integrated Circuits.

    Full text link
    Integrated circuits (ICs) are usually tested during manufacture by means of automatic testing equipment (ATE) employing probe cards and needles that make repeated physical contact with the ICs under test. Such direct-contact probing is very costly and imposes limitations on the use of ATE. For example, the probe needles must be frequently cleaned or replaced, and some emerging technologies such as three-dimensional ICs cannot be probed at all. As an alternative to conventional probe-card testing, wireless testing has been proposed. It mitigates many of the foregoing problems by replacing probe needles and contact points with wireless communication circuits. However, wireless testing also raises new problems which are poorly understood such as: What is the most suitable wireless communication technique to employ, and how well does it work in practice? This dissertation addresses the design and implementation of circuits to support wireless testing of ICs. Various wireless testing methods are investigated and evaluated with respect to their practicality. The research focuses on near-field capacitive communication because of its efficiency over the very short ranges needed during IC manufacture. A new capacitive channel model including chip separation, cross-talk, and misalignment effects is proposed and validated using electro-magnetic simulation studies to provide the intuitions for efficient antenna and circuit design. We propose a compact clock and data recovery architecture to avoid a dedicated clock channel. An analytical model which predicts the DC-level fluctuation due to the capacitive channel is presented. Based on this model, feed-forward clock selection is designed to enhance performance. A method to select proper channel termination is discussed to maximize the channel efficiency for return-to-zero signaling. Two prototype ICs incorporating wireless testing systems were fabricated and tested with the proposed methods of testing digital circuits. Both successfully demonstrated gigahertz communication speeds with a bit-error rate less than 10^−11. A third prototype IC containing analog voltage measurement circuits was implemented to determine the feasibility of wirelessly testing analog circuits. The fabricated prototype achieved satisfactory voltage measurement with 1 mV resolution. Our work demonstrates the validity of the proposed models and the feasibility of near-field capacitive communication for wireless testing of ICs.PHDElectrical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93993/1/duelee_1.pd
    corecore