UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

ECE 697PP: Special Topics: Design for Manufacturability and Reliability of VLSI Circuits
Spring 2008

Description: A seminar/project course on the theory and practice in designing for manufaturability and reliability of VLSI circuits.

• The topics to be covered include:

  • 1. Introduction.
  • 2. Manufacturing Defects.
    • Particulate defects
    • Large parametric excursion
    • Lithographic aberrations (e.g., problems related to diffraction, focal image plane and dose)
  • 3. Defect Modeling.
    • For critical yield (critical area calculation and optical proximity correction)
    • For parametric yield (litho and resist simulation)
  • 4. Yield Models (with and w/o redundancy).
  • 5. Defect Tolerance Techniques.
    • Architecture based techniques (memories, processors, PLAs etc)
    • Circuit/layout hardening techniques
    • Algorithm based tolerance
    • Statistical methods
  • 6. Reliability Issues.
    • Hot Carrier.
    • Electromigration.
    • Gate oxide problems.
    • Testing for reliability problems.
  • 7. Industrial Perspectives (case studies).

• Course References.
• Hints for preparing a paper presentation.

• Lecture Slides:
  • Lecture 1 (pdf file).
  • Lecture 2 (pdf file).
  • Lecture 3 (pdf file).
  • Lecture 4 (pdf file).
  • Lecture 5 (pdf file).
  • Lecture 6 (pdf file).
  • Lecture 7 (pdf file).
  • Lecture 8 - Yield (pdf file).
  • Lecture 9 - Yield (pdf file).
  • Lecture 10 - Yield (pdf file).
  Next classes will be on Monday at 10am and Wed. at 11am in the KEB 3rd floor conference room..