Extending Silicon Lifetime: A Review of Design Techniques for Reliable Integrated Circuits

TL;DR

This survey addresses aging in integrated circuits, focusing on BTI, HCI, TDDB, EM, and stochastic aging across digital, analog, SRAM, and system-level contexts. It synthesizes aging mechanisms, monitoring techniques (e.g., ring oscillators, critical-path replicas, EM sensing), and mitigation strategies (circuit- and system-level), and highlights software-based approaches such as ML, graph learning, and approximate computing to enable aging-aware design. Key contributions include a unified view of aging across domains, identification of gaps (notably interconnect aging and analog aging coverage), and a roadmap for integrating ML/EDA-based tools with hardware design to extend IC lifetimes. The work underscores the practical importance of aging-aware design for sustainable operation in diverse applications and evolving technology nodes, offering concrete guidance for researchers and industry toward standardized aging models and toolchains. $V_{TH}$ shifts, delay variability, and reliability metrics like $MTTF$ are central to the discussions, reflecting the quantitative emphasis of modern reliability design.

Abstract

Reliability has become an increasing concern in modern computing. Integrated circuits (ICs) are the backbone of modern computing devices across industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), consumer electronics, healthcare, automotive, industrial, and aerospace. Moore Law has driven the semiconductor IC industry toward smaller dimensions, improved performance, and greater energy efficiency. However, as transistors shrink to atomic scales, aging-related degradation mechanisms such as Bias Temperature Instability (BTI), Hot Carrier Injection (HCI), Time-Dependent Dielectric Breakdown (TDDB), Electromigration (EM), and stochastic aging-induced variations have become major reliability threats. From an application perspective, applications like AI training and autonomous driving require continuous and sustainable operation to minimize recovery costs and enhance safety. Additionally, the high cost of chip replacement and reproduction underscores the need for extended lifespans. These factors highlight the urgency of designing more reliable ICs. This survey addresses the critical aging issues in ICs, focusing on fundamental degradation mechanisms and mitigation strategies. It provides a comprehensive overview of aging impact and the methods to counter it, starting with the root causes of aging and summarizing key monitoring techniques at both circuit and system levels. A detailed analysis of circuit-level mitigation strategies highlights the distinct aging characteristics of digital, analog, and SRAM circuits, emphasizing the need for tailored solutions. The survey also explores emerging software approaches in design automation, aging characterization, and mitigation, which are transforming traditional reliability optimization. Finally, it outlines the challenges and future directions for improving aging management and ensuring the long-term reliability of ICs across diverse applications.

Figures (12)

• Figure 1: No. of Publications in device reliability issues and development of technology node demaria2021_ICIntro_technode over past 25 years (2000-2024).
• Figure 2: Failure Bathtub Curve.
• Figure 3: Illustration of BTI mechanism using (a) reaction–diffusion (R-D) (b) trapping–detrapping (T-D) models in a p-MOSFET.
• Figure 4: (a) Illustration of NBTI effect on a p-MOSFET under applied gate pulse with duty cycle (say PDC=50) (b) Shift in threshold voltage ($\Delta V_{TH}$) effect with for various PDC
• Figure 5: Illustration of different types of hot electron generation in n-MOSFET structure.