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Signal Integrity and Circuit Reliability Issues in Deep

Interconnects introduce parasitic effects like capacitance, resistance, and inductance that can impact circuit reliability and signal integrity. Capacitance can cause crosstalk, resistance leads to voltage drops, and inductance introduces noise from changing currents. As technologies scale, these effects are increasingly difficult to manage and can degrade performance. Design techniques aim to minimize these issues through layout practices and use of low-k dielectrics and low-resistance metals. Power distribution faces particular challenges from IR drop and Ldi/dt noise, while clock distribution relies on a global signal to synchronize sequential elements.

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Sandhya Tondapu
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52 views

Signal Integrity and Circuit Reliability Issues in Deep

Interconnects introduce parasitic effects like capacitance, resistance, and inductance that can impact circuit reliability and signal integrity. Capacitance can cause crosstalk, resistance leads to voltage drops, and inductance introduces noise from changing currents. As technologies scale, these effects are increasingly difficult to manage and can degrade performance. Design techniques aim to minimize these issues through layout practices and use of low-k dielectrics and low-resistance metals. Power distribution faces particular challenges from IR drop and Ldi/dt noise, while clock distribution relies on a global signal to synchronize sequential elements.

Uploaded by

Sandhya Tondapu
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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INTERCONNECT ISSUES(SIGNAL

INTEGRITY AND CIRCUIT


RELIABILITY )

B . Karuna Kumari
EC094106
Contents
 Introduction
 Interconnect parasitic

Capacitance
Resistance
Inductance
 Design Techniques

 Signal integrity issues

 References
INTRODUCTION

 Advances in interconnect technologies, Such as the


increase in the number of metal layers, stacked vias ,
and the reduced routing pitch, have played a key role to
continuously improve IC density and operating speed.
 This inter connect in DSM suddenly controlled timing
power, noise design and reliability of the circuit.
Characterization of interconnect effect

The problems that are associated with interconnect are


characterized as mainly two main issues

1. Circuit Reliability 2. Signal integrity

 Circuitreliability refers to expected lifespan of operation


of a functioning system under nominal conditions
 Here signal integrity includes timing, power , noise ,
design functionality.
Interconnect parasitic :
 Interconnect introduces three types of parasitic effects
Capacitive
Resistive
Inductive
The above three parasitic influence the signal integrity and
degrade the performance of the circuit .
 Here capacitance introduces the cross talk

 Resistance introduces ohmic voltage drop

 Inductance introduces L di/dt voltage drop


Analyzation of low interconnect affects the circuit
operation:
Capacitance and crosstalk
 An unwanted coupling from a neighboring signal wire to a
n/w node introduces an interference called crosstalk .
 This disturbance acts as noise source . In IC’s the inter signal
coupling can be both capacitive and inductive.
 The potential impact of capacitive crosstalk is influenced by
the impedance of the line under examination.
If the line is floating the disturbance caused
by coupling persists .

Floating lines

X
C XY
VX Y
CY
Cross Talk and Performance
 Capacitive crosstalk may result in a data dependence
variation of propagation delay.

DELAY DEPENDENT UPON


ACTIVITY IN NEIGHBORING
Cc WIRES
Design Technique
Dealing with capacitive crosstalk
 Avoid floating nodes . Nodes sensitive to crosstalk problems
such as precharged busses, should be equipped with keeper
devices to reduce the impedance.

 Do not allow capacitance b/n two signal wires to grow


too large parallel wires on the same layer should be
spaced sufficiently.
Resistance Reliability – ohmic voltage drop:

 Current flowing through a resistive wire results in


an ohmic voltage drop that degrades the signal
levels.
 This is especially important in the power-
distribution n/w where current levels can easily
reach amperes.
 In addition to causing a reliability
V DDV DDrisk ,IR drops
on supply n/w also impact the performance of
the system
Resistance and performance – RC Delay

 The delay of a wire grows drastically with its


length, doubling the length of a wire increases its
delay by a factor of 4!

 The signal delay of long wires therefore tends to be


dominated by the RC effect.

 This leads to the rather strange situation that it may


take multiple clock cycles to get a signal from one
side of a chip to its opposite end
Better Interconnect Materials
 A first option for reducing RC delays is to use better
interconnect materials when they are available and
appropriate.

 The introduction of silicides and Copper have helped to


reduce the resistance of poly silicon and metal wires,
respectively, while the adoption of dielectric materials
with a lower permittivity lowers the capacitance.

 Both Copper and low-permittivity dielectrics have become


common in advanced CMOS technologies
Inductance and Reliability- L di/dt voltage drop:

Both VDD and VSS connections are routed to the external supplies
through bonding wires and package pins and possess a non ignorable
series inductance. Hence, a change in the transient current creates a
voltage difference b/w the external and internal (VDD’, GND’)
supply voltages.

  V DD
Impact of inductance on
 L i ( t)
supply voltages:
V ’DD

 Change in current induces a
 Vi   V out
change in voltage
n
 CL
 Longer supply lines have
 GND
 ’
larger L
 L
Dealing with L di/dt

 Separate power pins for I/O pads and chip core.


 Multiple power and ground pins.
 Careful selection of the positions of the power and ground pins on the
package.
 Increase the rise and fall times of the off-chip signals to the
maximum extent allowable.
 Schedule current-consuming transitions.
 Use advanced packaging technologies.
Chip level design challenges dominated by
interconnect Issues are

a) power and
b) clock distribution

Power The conditions contributing to the


complexity of power distribution systems are primarily
due to interconnect and its impact on chip performance.
IR drop and L di/dt :
 IR drop due to resistance on V linesDD impact s timing and
functionality . These effects are made worse by the presence
of L di/dt voltage variations at package pins due to the
increased rate of charge of current in high – speed designs.
V= IR + L di/dt

 L di/dt term this is another source of voltage drop in the


power supply due to package pin inductance – typically
around 1-2nH .
VOLTAGE DROPS
 Voltage drop on the power grid primarily effect timing
 Noise margin of logic gates, due to only the voltage
drops in power grid, but also increase in voltage in
ground grid.
 Once the noise margins drop below the budgeted
amount, typically 10% the design not guaranteed to
operated properly.
 Clock distribution All sequential circuits have one
property in common –a well-defined ordered of the
switching events must be imposed if the circuit is to
operate correctly.

 The synchronous system approach ,in which all memory


elements in the system are simultaneously updated
using a globally distributed periodic synchronization
signal (that is, a global clock signal), represents an
effective and popular way to enforce this ordering.
References
 Challenges & Solutions of Signal Integrity in VDSM Physical
Design Dr. Danny Rittman ([email protected]) May 2004
 Digital Integrated Circuits A Design Perspective

by Jan M.Rabaey .
 Analysis and design of Digital Integrated circuits In deep
Submicron Technology by David A Hodges| Horace G
Jackson | Resve A saleh

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