A pragmatic network-aware paradigm for system-level electromigration predictions at scale

Abstract

The standard approach for electromigration (EM) compliance checks of CMOS systems is based on failure statistics from EM tests on single isolated interconnects. Thus, when applied to interconnect schemes with parallel connections, important phenomena such as current redirection due to redundancy, are ignored. In this study, a practical network-aware paradigm is proposed to rectify this shortcoming. Benchmarking against the standard approach for a power delivery network (PDN), indicates that an order of magnitude higher standard-cell (SC) currents would be allowed due to redundancy and a failure criterion inspired by SCs optimal operation instead of single interconnect R-shift.