IP extracts on-chip performance data on TSMC 28HPC process

Design reliability for sub-micron chips is highly dependent on physical parameters such as voltage and temperature.

UK-based silicon intellectual property (IP) developer Moortec Semiconductor is offering chip designers process, voltage and temperature monitoring and optimisation IP for CMOS geometries such as 40nm, 28nm and FinFET.

The IP embeds monitors within System on Chip (SoC) designs for sensing die temperature, detecting logic speed and monitoring voltage supply levels.

The data can then be used to vary system clock frequencies and the voltage levels of supply domains.

Moortec has created the IP called Embedded Process Detector (MEPD) for the TSMC 28HPC process. It provides the designer with on-chip data which can be used for optimisation of the design, which the Plymouth-based company calls Dynamic Voltage & Frequency Scaling (DVFS).

The embedded IP will detect the process variations brought about by manufacturing variability and drift of advanced node core digital MOS devices.

It is possible to monitor manufacturing variations on and if required, across chip, gate delay measurements, critical path analysis, critical voltage analysis and also monitor silicon ‘ageing’.

The company believes IC designers will increasingly need to analyse this data harvested from in-chip monitors during the life time of every device.

“The greater process variability that is apparent at these challenging small geometry CMOS technologies is forcing the IC design community to look at conditions on-chip, not just generally but also per device and within regions of a device,” said Stephen Crosher, managing director of Moortec Semiconductor.

“At low-geometry nodes, track and via resistances are dramatically increasing, core supply headroom is diminishing and the power consumption per unit area of silicon is increasing, whether that be through static leakage current or dynamic current consumption”

Moortec is looking at monitor on-chip interfaces such as AMBA plans to make the IP available on 28-nm and FinFET process nodes.

Moortec Semiconductor is a 10-year-old Plymouth-based company developing analogue and mixed-signal IP.

 

Richard Wilson

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