Tutorials



Tutorial 1:

Design for Reliability: From Devices to Systems

Part-1: Origin, characterization and compact modelling of device aging Speaker: Prof. Montserrat Nafría, UAB, Spain.
Part-2: Reliability-aware design Speaker: Dr. Elisenda Roca, IMSE-CNM, Spain
Part-3: Quantifying and mitigating aging effects at the system level Speaker: Dr. Hussam Amrouch, KIT, Germany

Throughout technology scaling, sustaining reliability has become extraordinary challenging. Key to the design of reliable circuits and systems is to account for the uncertainty introduced in the electrical characteristics of devices by Time Zero Variability (TZV), also known as process variations, and Time Dependent Variability (TDV) phenomena (such as Random Telegraph Noise, Bias Temperature Instabilities and Channel Hot Carriers Injection) and its impact on circuits and systems. This tutorial will present the newest research results in reliability from ground up; starting from physics where reliability degradations do originate all the way up to the system level where their ultimate impact finally takes place.
In the first part of the tutorial, the physics behind TDV phenomena, the characterization challenges in advanced nodes and their compact modeling will be addressed. The second part of the tutorial will use these stochastic compact models to build circuit simulators accounting for this reliability information. They constitute the cornerstone of new reliability-aware design methodologies and tools that help designers to optimize the circuit lifetime. In the last part of the tutorial, we will demonstrate how reliability awareness can be brought to the existing EDA tool flows, which enables designers to proactively build more resilient circuits. This is done through so-called reliability-aware cell libraries. We will show how using these libraries will allow designers to also quantify the ultimate impact of aging at the system level. Finally, we will explain how approximate computing principles can be explored in the context of aging towards maximizing the efficiency.
Prof. Montserrat Nafría
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Prof. Montserrat Nafría received the Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain, in 1993, where she is currently a Full Professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering. Her major research interests include CMOS device and circuit reliability. Currently, she is working on the characterization and modelling of the aging (BTI and channel hot carrier degradations) and variability of advanced MOS devices. This is done from the nanoscale level, by studying the phenomena using Atomic Force Microscope-related techniques, up to circuit level, by developing models for circuit simulators that account for the time-dependent variability of the devices. She is also interested in the characterization and modelling of Resistive RAM and graphene-based devices. She is the author or coauthor of more than 250 research papers in scientific journals and conferences in all these fields.

Dr. Hussam Amrouch
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
Dr. Hussam Amrouch is a Research Group Leader at the Chair for Embedded Systems (CES), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. He is leading of the Dependable Hardware research group. He received his Ph.D. degree from KIT in 2015 with distinct (summa cum laude). His main research interests are design for reliability and VLSI design. He holds six HiPEAC Paper Awards. He has recently three best paper nominations at DAC'16, DAC'17 and DATE'17 for his work on reliability. He currently serves as Associate Editor at Integration, the VLSI Journal.

Dr. Elisenda Roca
Institute of Microelectronics of Seville, (IMSE-CNM-CSIC)
Dr. Elisenda Roca received the Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Barcelona, Spain, in 1995. From November 1990 to April 1995, she worked at IMEC, Leuven, Belgium, in the field of infrared detection aiming to obtain large arrays of CMOS compatible silicide Schottky diodes. Since 1995, she has been with the Institute of Microelectronics of Seville, (IMSE-CNM-CSIC), Spain, where she holds the position of Tenured Scientist. Her research interests lie in the field of modeling and design methodologies for analog, mixed-signal and RF integrated circuits. Currently, she is working on new RF design flows that incorporate EM inductor modeling and on reliability-aware design methodologies for CMOS circuits.


Tutorial 2:

From Power Management to Energetic Intelligence:
an evolutionary challenge for students, educators and designers

Prof. Nicola Femia, University of Salerno

Power Management Circuits and Systems provide electrical energy to all the objects making our life more comfortable, safer and funnier, like smart phones and watches, aircraft and automobiles, implanted prostheses and magnetic resonance machines, blenders and microwave ovens, robots and drones, digital TV sets and personal computers. The Design of Power Management Circuits and Systems is an exciting intellectual dare for students and educators, as it stimulates insight of interdisciplinary knowledge, understanding of new technologies, exploration of unconventional design solutions, discovery of the power of mathematics, reinforcement of problem solving capability, intelligent use of the energy and ultimately preservation of the environment and of the Earth's resources.
Power Management Circuits and Systems have today to implement much more enhanced energy processing functions than in the past, thus bridging power designers into the era of Energetic Intelligence. University education and industry training has to coherently enhance, to proactively drive this evolution and to guide talented students and designers towards the achievement of powerful professional skills. The presentation intends to overview power management design issues and to propose a vision of the knowledge and tools needed to win the challenges of Energetic Intelligence.
Prof. Nicola Femia
University of Salerno

Prof. Nicola Femia is Professor at the University of Salerno, Italy, where he teaches Power Electronics and Energetic Intelligence in the Electronic and Computer Engineering Master Programs. His research activities encompass circuit theory and applications, design and optimization of switching power supplies, magnetic power components modeling and optimization, power electronics and control techniques for photovoltaic systems, wireless power transfer systems. He is co-author of more than 180 scientific papers, one book and six patents. He leads the Power Electronics and Renewable Sources Laboratory of the Computer and Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics Department of the University of Salerno.

In the last two decades he has directed and developed tens of research and education projects on power electronics topics, mostly in collaboration with worldwide leader companies, including National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, National Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Power-One/ABB, Whirlpool, Coilcraft, Wurth, Silica/AVNET. He held more than 50 invited lectures, courses and seminars on Power Electronics Design and Education for universities and industries over Europe, United States, China and India. In 2014 he has been Visiting Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department of the Stanford University, Stanford, CA, where he taught Power Electronics Control and Energy Aware Design in the Electrical Engineering Enhanced Master Program. He is author and co-creator of the Texas Instruments Power Management Laboratory Kit (TI-PMLK) and of the Texas Instruments Power Electronics board for National Instruments Elvis III, and relevant curricula, for university and industry power electronics education and training.