Large system complexities and operation under tight timing constraints in rapidly shrinking technologies have made it extremely important to ensure correct temporal behavior of modern-day digital circuits, both before and after fabrication. Research in (pre-fabrication) timing verification and (post-fabrication) delay fault testing has evolved along largely disjoint lines in spite of the fact that they share many basic concepts. A Unified Approach for Timing Verification and Delay Fault Testing applies concepts developed in the context of delay fault testing to path sensitization, which allows an accurate timing analysis mechanism to be developed. This path sensitization strategy is further applied for efficient delay fault diagnosis and delay fault coverage estimation. A new path sensitization strategy called Signal Stabilization Time Analysis (SSTA) has been developed based on the fact that primitive PDFs determine the stabilization time of the circuit outputs. This analysis has been used to develop a feasible method of identifying the primitive PDFs in a general multi-level logic circuit. An approach to determine the maximum circuit delay using this primitive PDF identification mechanism is also presented. The Primitive PDF Identification-based Timing Analysis (PITA) approach is proved to determine the maximum floating mode circuit delay exactly under any component delay model, and provides several advantages over previously floating mode timing analyzers. A framework for the diagnosis of circuit failures caused by distributed path delay faults is also presented. A metric to quantify the diagnosability of a path delay fault for a test is also proposed. Finally, the book presents a very realistic metric for delay fault coverage which accounts for delay fault size distributions and is applicable to any delay fault model. A Unified Approach for Timing Verification and Delay Fault Testing will be of interest to university and industry researchers in timing analysis and delay fault testing as well as EDA tool development engineers and design verification engineers dealing with timing issues in ULSI circuits. The book should also be of interest to digital designers and others interested in knowing the state of the art in timing verification and delay fault testing.

One of the keys to success in the IC industry is getting a new product to market in a timely fashion and being able to produce that product with sufficient yield to be profitable. There are two ways to increase yield: by improving the control of the manufacturing process and by designing the process and the circuits in such a way as to minimize the effect of the inherent variations of the process on performance. The latter is typically referred to as "design for manufacture" or "statistical design." As device sizes continue to shrink, the effects of the inherent fluctuations in the IC fabrication process will have an even more obvious effect on circuit performance. And design for manufacture will increase in importance. We have been working in the area of statistically based computer aided design for more than 13 years. During the last decade we have been working with each other, and individually with our students, to develop methods and CAD tools that can be used to improve yield during the design and manufacturing phases of IC realization. This effort has resulted in a large number of publications that have appeared in a variety of journals and conference proceedings. Thus our motivation in writing this book is to put, in one place, a description of our approach to IC yield enhancement. While the work that is contained in this book has appeared in the open literature, we have attempted to use a consistent notation throughout this book.

Large system complexities and operation under tight timing constraints in rapidly shrinking technologies have made it extremely important to ensure correct temporal behavior of modern-day digital circuits, both before and after fabrication. Research in (pre-fabrication) timing verification and (post-fabrication) delay fault testing has evolved along largely disjoint lines in spite of the fact that they share many basic concepts. A Unified Approach for Timing Verification and Delay Fault Testing applies concepts developed in the context of delay fault testing to path sensitization, which allows an accurate timing analysis mechanism to be developed. This path sensitization strategy is further applied for efficient delay fault diagnosis and delay fault coverage estimation. A new path sensitization strategy called Signal Stabilization Time Analysis (SSTA) has been developed based on the fact that primitive PDFs determine the stabilization time of the circuit outputs. This analysis has been used to develop a feasible method of identifying the primitive PDFs in a general multi-level logic circuit. An approach to determine the maximum circuit delay using this primitive PDF identification mechanism is also presented. The Primitive PDF Identification-based Timing Analysis (PITA) approach is proved to determine the maximum floating mode circuit delay exactly under any component delay model, and provides several advantages over previously floating mode timing analyzers. A framework for the diagnosis of circuit failures caused by distributed path delay faults is also presented. A metric to quantify the diagnosability of a path delay fault for a test is also proposed. Finally, the book presents a very realistic metric for delay fault coverage which accounts for delay fault size distributions and is applicable to any delay fault model. A Unified Approach for Timing Verification and Delay Fault Testing will be of interest to university and industry researchers in timing analysis and delay fault testing as well as EDA tool development engineers and design verification engineers dealing with timing issues in ULSI circuits. The book should also be of interest to digital designers and others interested in knowing the state of the art in timing verification and delay fault testing.

One of the keys to success in the IC industry is getting a new product to market in a timely fashion and being able to produce that product with sufficient yield to be profitable. There are two ways to increase yield: by improving the control of the manufacturing process and by designing the process and the circuits in such a way as to minimize the effect of the inherent variations of the process on performance. The latter is typically referred to as "design for manufacture" or "statistical design." As device sizes continue to shrink, the effects of the inherent fluctuations in the IC fabrication process will have an even more obvious effect on circuit performance. And design for manufacture will increase in importance. We have been working in the area of statistically based computer aided design for more than 13 years. During the last decade we have been working with each other, and individually with our students, to develop methods and CAD tools that can be used to improve yield during the design and manufacturing phases of IC realization. This effort has resulted in a large number of publications that have appeared in a variety of journals and conference proceedings. Thus our motivation in writing this book is to put, in one place, a description of our approach to IC yield enhancement. While the work that is contained in this book has appeared in the open literature, we have attempted to use a consistent notation throughout this book.