Capturing true workload dependency of BTI-induced degradation in CPU components

Abstract

Atomistic-based approaches accurately model Bias Temperature Instability phenomena, but they suffer from prolonged execution times, preventing their seamless integration in system-level analysis flows. In this paper we present a comprehensive flow that combines the accuracy of Capture Emission Time (CET) maps with the efficiency of the Compact Digital Waveform (CDW) representation. That way, we capture the true workload-dependent BTI-induced degradation of selected CPU components. First, we show that existing works that assume constant stress patterns fail to account for workload dependency leading to fundamental estimation errors. Second, we evaluate the impact of different real workloads on selected CPU sub-blocks from a commercial processor design. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that combines atomistic property and true workload-dependency for variability analysis.