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2007
Journal Article
Titel
Testing and monitoring nanoscale systems - Challenges and strategies for advanced quality assurance
Abstract
The increased number of fabrication defects, spatial and temporal variability of parameters, as well as the growing impact of soft errors in nanoelectronic systems require a paradigm shift in design, verification and test. A robust design becomes mandatory to ensure dependable systems and acceptable yields. Design robustness, however, invalidates many traditional approaches for testing and implies enormous challenges. The ReaITest Project addresses these problems for nanoscale CMOS and targets unified design and test strategies to support both a robust design and a coordinated quality assurance after manufacturing and during the lifetime of a system. The paper first gives a short overview of the research activities within the project and then focuses on a first result concerning soft errors in combinational logic. It will be shown that common electrical models for particle strikes in random logic have underestimated the effects on the system behavior. The refined model developed within the ReaITest Project predicts about twice as many single events upsets (SEUs) caused by particle strikes as traditional models.