Test and Diagnosis of Hard-to-Detect Faults in FinFET SRAMs

The Fin Field-Effect Transistor (FinFET) technology became the most promising approach to enable the downscaling of technological nodes below the 20 nm threshold. However, the introduction of new technology nodes for embedded memories such as SRAMs, especially for even smaller nodes such as 10 and 5 nm, gives rise to new manufacturing failure...

Reliability Analysis of FinFET-Based SRAM PUFs for 16nm, 14nm, and 7nm Technology Nodes

SRAM Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are among other things today commercially used for secure primitives such as key generation and authentication. The quality of the PUFs and hence the security primitives, depends on intrinsic variations which are technology dependent. Therefore, to sustain the commercial usage of PUFs for cutting-edge...

Evaluation of Single Event Upset Susceptibility of FinFET-based SRAMs with Weak Resistive Defects

Fin Field-Effect Transistor (FinFET) technology enables the continuous downscaling of Integrated Circuits (ICs), using the Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology in accordance with the More Moore domain. Despite demonstrating improvements on short channel effect and overcoming the growing leakage problem of planar CMOS...

Detecting Random Read Faults to Reduce Test Escapes in FinFET SRAMs

Manufacturing defects in FinFET SRAMs can cause hard-to-detect faults such as Random Read Faults (RRFs). Detection of RRFs is not trivial, as they may not lead to incorrect outputs. Undetected RRFs become test escapes, which might lead to no-trouble-found devices and early in-field failures. Therefore, the detection of RRFs is of utmost...

Improving the Detection of Undefined State Faults in FinFET SRAMs

Manufacturing defects in FinFET SRAMs can cause hard-to-detect faults such as Undefined State Faults (USFs). Detection of USFs is not trivial, as they may not lead to incorrect functionality. Nevertheless, undetected USFs may have a severe impact on the memory's quality: they can cause random read outputs, which might lead to test escapes and no...

Evaluating the Impact of Ionizing Particles on FinFET -based SRAMs with Weak Resistive Defects

Fin Field-Effect Transistor (FinFET) technology enables the continuous downscaling of Integrated Circuits (ICs), using the Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology in accordance with the More Moore domain. Despite demonstrating improvements on short channel effect and overcoming the growing leakage problem of planar CMOS...

Modeling Static Noise Margin for FinFET based SRAM PUFs

In this paper, we develop an analytical PUF model based on a compact FinFET transistor model that calculates the PUF stability (i.e. PUF static noise margin (PSNM)) for FinFET based SRAMs. The model enables a quick design space exploration and may be used to identify critical parameters that affect the PSNM. The analytical model is validated...

A DFT Scheme to Improve Coverage of Hard-to-Detect Faults in FinFET SRAMs

Manufacturing defects can cause faults in FinFET SRAMs. Of them, easy-to-detect (ETD) faults always cause incorrect behavior, and therefore are easily detected by applying sequences of write and read operations. However, hard-to-detect (HTD) faults may not cause incorrect behavior, only parametric deviations. Detection of these faults is of...

System-level sub-20 nm planar and FinFET CMOS delay modelling for supply and threshold voltage scaling under process variation

Standard low power design utilizes a variety of approaches for supply and threshold control to reduce dynamic and idle power. At a very early stage of the design cycle, the V_dd and V_th values are estimated, based on the power budget, and then used to scale the delay and estimate the design performance. Furthermore,...

DFT Scheme for Hard-to-Detect Faults in FinFET SRAMs

Hard-to-detect faults such as weak and random faults in FinFET SRAMs represent an important challenge for manufacturing testing in scaled technologies, as they may lead to test escapes. This paper proposes a Design-for-Testability (DFT) scheme able to detect such faults by monitoring the bitline swing of FinFET memories. Using only five...