Transcript Transistor Aging

Transistor Aging
Niranjan Soundararajan
Aging
Timeline
Clock period
Start of lifetime
Fails!!
Transistors do age… like humans
• Transistors slow down over time
• Rate of aging very related to stress
• Similarities exist in the cause and effect of
aging
Mortality rate comparison
Process Variation
- Systematic: You are as good as your friends
Different Aging Phenomena
• NBTI
– Transistor holds same data for long periods
– “All work and no play”
• HCE
– Related to amount of switching
– Moving back and forth between jobs
• Oxide Breakdown
– Breakdown of gate-oxide between semi-conductors
slowly over time
• Electro-Migration
– Electron flow in same direction
– Blood flow
Decreasing aging effects
• Stress reduction mechanisms
– Meditation
– Decrease temperature for transistors
– Load-balancing
• Facelift
– “Transistor Aging” related paper
• Defect tolerance
• Monitoring
– Health periodically
– Sensors on-chip to identify stressed transistors