Detection of Transient Faults in Nanometer Technologies by using Modular Built-In Current Sensors

Abstract

Soft error resilience is an increasingly important requirement of integrated circuits realized in CMOS nanometer technologies. Among the several approaches, Bulk Built-in Current Sensors (BBICS) offer a promising solution as they are able to detect particle strikes immediately after its occurrence. Based on this idea we demonstrate a novel modular BBICS (mBBICS) that tackles the main problems of these integrated sensors – area, leakage, and robustness. Simulations based on a predictive nanometer technology indicate competitive response times for high performance applications at the cost of 25 % area overhead and very low power penalty. Thereby, all simulated particle strikes that lead to transient faults could be detected. Additionally, reliability analysis proved the robustness of the proposed mBBICS against wide variations of temperature and process parameters.