Simulating and improving microelectronic device reliability by scaling voltage and temperature

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to explore how device operation parameters such as switching speed and power dissipation scale with voltage and temperature. We simulated a CMOS ring oscillator under different stress conditions to determine the accurate scaling relations of these operating parameters. Reduced voltage, frequency and temperature applied to a device will reduce its internal stresses, leading to an improvement of device reliability. Since all these variations for a single device are proportional, the ratios can be applied to a full circuit and help to simplify the derating model and formulate practical design guidelines for system developers to derate devices for long life applications.