Question

Please define the following terms and acronyms, a. Process Variation, b. Design Corners, c. Oxide Wear Out, d. Hot Carriers, e. Electromigration, f. Soft Errors, g. Latchup, h. ITRS, i. IRDS, j. EETIMES

Answer 1

Process variation: It is the naturally occurring variation in the attributes of transistors (length, widths, oxide thickness) when integrated circuits are fabricated. Process variation causes measurable and predictable variance in the output performance of all circuits but particularly analog circuits due to mismatch.

Design corner: It represents a three or six sigma variation from nominal doping concentrations (and other parameters) in transistors on a silicon wafer.

•   Front End Of Line (FEOL)
•   Back End Of Line (BEOL)

Oxide Wear Out: Defects within the gate oxide are usually called traps. They are called traps because the degraded oxide can trap charges. Traps are usually neutral, but quickly become positively charged near the anode, and negatively charged near the cathode.

Hot carriers: It refers to either holes or electrons (also referred to as 'hot electrons') that have gained very high kinetic energy after being accelerated by a strong electric field in areas of high field intensities within a semiconductor (especially MOS) device. Because of their high kinetic energy, hot carriers can get injected and trapped in areas of the device where they shouldn't be, forming a space charge that causes the device to degrade or become unstable. The term 'hot carrier effects', therefore, refers to device degradation or instability caused by hot carrier injection.

Electro migration (EM): It is the movement of material that results from the transfer of momentum between electrons and metal atoms under influence of an applied electric field. The effect is important in applications where high direct current densities are used, such as in microelectronics and related structures.

Soft Error: In electronics and computing, a soft error is a type of error where a signal or datum is wrong. Errors may be caused by a defect, usually understood either to be a mistake in design or construction, or a broken component.

Latch up: It is defined as the generation of a low-impedance path in CMOS chips between the power supply (V_DD) and the ground (GND) due to the interaction of parasitic PNP and NPN bipolar junction transistors (BJTs).

ITRS: International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, an international body for guiding the semiconductor industry.

IRDS: International Roadmap for Devices and Systems. The International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, or IRDS. It is a set of predictions about likely developments in electronic devices and systems.

EE Times: It keeps the global electronics community updated on semiconductor-related news and analysis.