Electromigration-Aware and IR-Drop Avoidance Routing in Analog Multiport Terminal Structures
Martins, R. M.
;
Lourenço, N.
;
Canelas, A.
;
Horta, N.
Electromigration-Aware and IR-Drop Avoidance Routing in Analog Multiport Terminal Structures, Proc Design, Automation, and Test in Europe - DATE, Dresden, Germany, Vol. n/a, pp. 1 - 6, March, 2014.
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Abstract
This paper describes an electromigration-aware
and IR-Drop avoidance routing approach considering multiport
multiterminal (MP/MT) signal nets of analog integrated circuits
(IC). The effects of current densities and temperature in the
interconnects may cause the malfunction/failure of a circuit due
to IR-Drop or electromigration (EM). These become increasingly
more relevant with the ongoing reduction of circuit sizes caused
by the evolution of the nanoscale integration processes.
Therefore, EM and IR-Drop effects must be taken into account in
the design of both power networks and signal wires of analog and
mixed-signal ICs, to make their impact on the circuits’ reliability
negligible. In previous EM and IR-Drop-aware analog IC routing
approaches, ‘dot-models’ are assumed for the terminals, i.e., each
terminal has only one port that need to be routed, however, in
practice, analog standard cells usually contain multiple
electrically-equivalent locations, often distributed over different
fabrications layers, where legal connections can be made, i.e., MP
terminals, which need to be properly explored. The design flow is
detailed, and the applicability of the approach is demonstrated
with experimental results, and also, by generating the routing of
an analog circuit structure for the UMC 130nm design process.