Efficient total ionizing dose-aware standard cell characterization methodology for path-level timing performance in...

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Materials Science
• Computer Engineering

Background:

• Nanoscale CMOS technology faces reliability challenges in radiation-rich environments.
• Standard cell libraries lack Total Ionizing Dose (TID) effect characterization.
• TID degrades transistor parameters, causing timing inaccuracies in critical applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an efficient, TID-aware standard cell characterization methodology.
• To generate radiation-resilient cell characterization data in Liberty format.
• To enable accurate timing closure prediction under TID influence without SPICE overhead.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 32 nm Synopsys© Sentaurus TCAD simulations for TID effect modeling.
• Employed variation-aware analytical timing models to capture radiation-induced degradation.
• Adjusted BSIM parameters in cell netlists to create pre- and post-radiation libraries.

Main Results:

• Achieved accurate path-level timing predictions for reference designs under radiation.
• Reduced SPICE simulation effort by approximately 81.25%.
• Generated TID-aware standard cell libraries in Liberty format.

Conclusions:

• The proposed methodology provides a practical solution for radiation-resilient digital IC design.
• Bridged device-level radiation effects with cell-level timing abstraction.
• Ensures robust digital circuit performance in harsh environments like aerospace and nuclear electronics.