INTERCONNECT OPTIMIZATION FOR RELIABILITY AND SCALABILITY

As process nodes continue to shrink to improve transistor density and performance, it is causing an increase in resistance of interconnects. At higher voltages devices speed up even more, causing interconnect to become the frequency limiter. Relatively in every node the interconnect delays continue to increase. In High Speed designs timing optimization is done across several modes to coverage design for multiple PVT points. With growing demand for Internet of Things (IoT) and autonomous driving, the need for high speed designs to be reliable and dependable at extreme conditions of high voltage and temperature continues to increase. Due to this the path profile across multiple PVT have changed with special focus on high voltage due to interconnect dominance. While most tools are capable of multi corner optimization, the increase in number of modes has challenges and more enhancements are needed to address interconnect. One such area is Interconnect scaling with repeater optimization at Section and Full chip levels. While previous papers have looked at several techniques to improve timing and slope for a given corner [1], [2], [3], this paper describes a formula to design the repeater solution to optimize delay scaling across different corners such as High Voltage and Typical Voltage to maximize performance.