Survey on reliability estimation in digital circuits

Abstract

The aggressive technology scaling has signifi-cantly affected the circuit reliability. The interaction of envi-ronmental radiation with the devices in the integrated circuits(ICs) may be the dominant reliability aspect of advanced ICs. Several techniques have been explored to mitigate the radia-tion effects and guarantee a satisfactory reliability levels. Inthis context, estimating circuit radiation reliability is crucialand a challenge that has not yet been overcome. For decades,several different methods have been proposed to provide cir-cuit reliability. Recently, the radiation effects have been morefaithfully incorporated in these strategies to provide the cir-cuit susceptibility more accurately. This paper overviews thecurrent trend for estimating the radiation reliability of digi-tal circuits. The survey divides the approaches into two ab-straction levels: (i) gate-level that incorporate the layout infor-mation and (ii) circuit-level that traditionally explore the logiccircuit characteristic to provide the radiation susceptibility ofcombinational circuits. We also present an open-source toolthat incorporates several previously explored methods. Finally,the actual research aspects are discussed, providing the newlyemerging topic, such as selective hardening and critical vector identification.